At first glance, there’s no need to overanalyze the best coffee syrup: sugar, water, flavoring – what’s so complicated about that? However, from my experience as a barista and from conversations with bar professionals, I know just how significant the differences can be.
As it turns out, some syrup brands are better suited for cocktails than for coffee. Plus, with some, you only need a drop, while with others, you have to use half the bottle to get any flavor. With all that in mind, I’ve done some research and testing for you.
Coming up in this guide to the best coffee syrup I’ll share what I’ve learned about the brands I tried. I’ll also weigh in on what makes good coffee syrup, and how you can use it to refine drinks, ice cream and cocktails. Oh, and just for good measure I’ll introduce you to the fully automatic machines with integrated coffee syrup functions. Ready? Let’s do this!
Table of Contents
Test Winners: The Best Coffee Syrups by Brand
In my experience, you can’t tell good coffee syrup by the brand or the asking price. What’s more, the information on the label is also of limited help. While nutritional values and ingredients can offer some clues, the only way to really know is to try it.
It’s not that complicated, because the mainstream coffee syrup market is fairly small. There are only a handful of manufacturers, but each offers a huge selection of flavors for all kinds of drinks.
The market leaders, Monin and Giffard, each offer over 150 flavor options, which seems completely bonkers! Then again, not all of these flavors seem to make sense – especially not in coffee drinks. These two brands are the most commonly used by both professionals and home cooks and receive the highest ratings. And for good reason:
Coffee syrup isn’t just water, sugar and a drop of flavoring. Depending on the ingredients, concentration and consistency, there can be significant differences in taste. In my opinion, Monin and Giffard get the blend just right. Some other brands do too (at least in part). Below you’ll find an overview of the best coffee syrup brands. Bear in mind that I selected widely available brands rather than small boutique manufacturers.
- Concentrated and aromatic
- Good value
- Widely available
- Excellent value for money
- Pleasantly natural taste
- Slightly lower intensity
- Highly concentrated syrup
- Natural ingredients
- Interesting flavor options
- Very strong flavor
- Great sugar-free options
- Quite a few additives
- Natural flavors
- Preservative-free syrup
- Handcrafted in California
“Objective” results are all well and good, but everyone has their own preferences when it comes to drinks. Most manufacturers offer coffee syrup sets for you to try. What’s more, you can buy a Monin Gourmet Selection on Amazon for just $20.99. Consisting of five mini bottles, this is a great way to try a few different flavors. Heck, you can even mix up your own coffee syrup blend if you want to be in full control of your own destiny..
Other Coffee Syrup Brands
There are some syrup products I’m sure you can do without. Take Jordan’s Skinny Syrups line, for example, which you can find at places like Walmart and Target as well as on Amazon. The bottles are inexpensive, but the coffee syrup has a very weak flavor and a nasty chemical aftertaste.
It seems they skimped on both the sugar and the flavor here. So you have to pour quite a bit into your drinks just to taste any difference at all. And the stronger your coffee is, the faster the flavor disappears.
Similar reports have also been made about DaVinci Gourmet. Here, the problem is evident in the nutritional values:
Higher-quality sugar-based coffee syrups contain more than 80 percent carbohydrates and over 300 kilocalories per 100 milliliters of syrup. Da Vinci’s syrup contains only about 50 percent carbohydrates and just over 200 kilocalories. All in all, this suggests that DaVinci Gourmet coffee syrups have a high water content.
There are also quite a few “healthy” syrup brands that aim to combine zero calories with great flavor. I’ve tried a few out of curiosity, but none of them really appealed to me. They always have a strange aftertaste that doesn’t enhance the coffee flavor. In fact, it actually spoils it altogether.
How to Use the Best Coffee Syrup
Whether or not you use coffee syrup – and how you use it – is entirely up to you. However, the syrup shouldn’t ever overpower your coffee; instead, it should enhance its natural flavor and make it even more interesting. To make sure that happens, just follow my coffee syrup tips.
Can I Use Syrup With a Fully Automatic Espresso Machine?
The Sweet Foam function in the Jura J8 Twin, Z10, or the updated S8 solves a common problem for many syrup lovers: How can you prevent your syrup from pooling at the bottom of the glass?
These premium super automatic machines sweeten the milk foam as it’s being frothed, ensuring the flavor is evenly distributed throughout the drink. If you want to achieve this on a fully automatic machine without a syrup cartridge, you have three options:
Froth the milk and coffee syrup together in a milk pitcher if you have a steam wand
Sweeten the milk foam before adding the espresso (latte macchiato, etc.)
Sweeten the espresso before adding the milk foam (cappuccino, flat white)
The third option only works if your fully automatic espresso machine dispenses espresso and milk foam in the correct order for a cappuccino or flat white. However, most machines interpret a cappuccino as little more than a small latte. There are machines that know how to do things right, though. Check out my best cappuccino maker guide for more detailed information.
Warning: If your machine has a cappuccinatore or maker or integrated milk frother, never add syrup directly to the milk! Under no circumstances should the sugar mixture be poured through the tube, as it will clog the pipes and nozzles. The Jura cartridge dispenses the coffee syrup into the milk at the same time as the milk is being frothed.
A safe and easy alternative is a standalone milk frother. Simply pour the milk and syrup into the chamber, press the button and wait until your perfectly sweetened foam is ready.
How Much Syrup Should I Add to Coffee?
Professional baristas add coffee syrup to cups, mugs or glasses using a pump dispenser, typically using two “pumps” per drink. That amounts to about 1 to 2 milliliters of coffee syrup.
Depending on the size of the coffee drink, this is the ideal concentration to enhance the coffee’s flavor and bring out the right notes.
If you want to use more, just use more. However, using less doesn’t make much sense, because then the coffee will overpower the flavor. In that case, you might as well skip the coffee syrup altogether.
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Enjoy your coffee drink hot for longer
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Can I Use Coffee Syrup as a Topping?
Vanilla, hazelnut or caramel aren’t just great accompaniments to coffee drinks – they go well with anything you’d like to jazz up. Most cocktails wouldn’t work without syrup, and you can also enhance ice cream, pudding, cake and other desserts with a touch of syrup.
However, you should make sure the syrup blends well with the other ingredients. In my humble opinion, just drizzling it over your ice cream sundae is a waste. Instead, try adding it to a whipped cream dispenser or mixing it into the wet ingredients when you’re making a cake.
Recipes With Coffee Syrup
The beauty of coffee syrup lies in its variety. In addition to vanilla, caramel and hazelnut, there are countless flavors you can use to enhance an endless array of recipes. Cocktails almost seem boring by comparison; coffee creations that go beyond simple lattes and the like are far more exciting.
You’ll find plenty of inspiration in my recipe guides. My tip: Coffee syrup is a great alternative to alcohol in many traditional coffee cocktails.
Fully Automatic Espresso Machines With Syrup: Jura J8 Twin, S8 & Z10
The Jura Sweet Foam Function, first introduced in the Jura J8, has been a huge hit. As a result, all new high-end Jura machines now come equipped with it – from the Jura J8 Twin with its dual grinders to the newly updated Jura S8.
Speaking of updates, the latest version of the Jura Z10, a top-of-the-line coffee machine, now also knows how to make a sweet latte macchiato. And in Europe you can even get hot chocolate out of the thing. For now though, my North American readers will have to pretend they didn’t read that last part.
I highly recommend any of these machines for much more than just their syrup function. They also excel at everything from espresso to milk foam and beyond. However, each of these machines also costs a lot of money – not least because of their somewhat “superfluous” features.
What Is Coffee Syrup & Can I Make It Myself?
It’s really delightfully simple: coffee syrup is flavored sugar syrup. Sugar syrup, in turn, is caramelized sugar heated with water. Depending on the ratio of the ingredients, the syrup takes on a thinner or thicker consistency. If you want to enjoy your syrup sugar-free, sweeteners like sucralose and a few stabilizers come into play.
Thanks to the simple basic recipe, you can make your own homemade coffee syrup. This is a very affordable option, though it’s usually only the classic varieties that are really easy to make.
Final Thoughts: How Long Will the Syrup Craze Last?
Is coffee syrup just for people who don’t actually like coffee? Personally, I don’t think so. If you choose the right flavor and don’t overdo it with the syrup, it can help balance out your coffee’s acidity, enhance any chocolatey notes and so on.
But here’s the thing: the best coffee beans are still the key to the best flavor. If you don’t like your coffee without a hint of syrup, the first thing you should do is switch up your beans. You owe it to yourself.
To syrup or not to syrup? Which team are you on? Let me know in the comments section!
