Pine syrup may not be the most widespread cocktail ingredient, but bartenders who discovered it have made this aromatic arboreal sweetener a staple in their repertoire. With its delicate, wintry, menthol flavor, pine syrup can instantly upgrade your gin and tonic or add a new twist to the ginger-spiced dimension of your gin and tonic. Pimm’s Cup in cold regions.
One such believer is Han Seok ChoKato, who lives in Los Angeles, learned how to make pine needle syrup the traditional way from her grandmother when she was growing up in South Korea. To make soribuchun (sometimes written soribcha), freshly picked young pine needles are stuffed with sugar and honey, and the mixture is gradually fermented and liquefied over a period of six months.
Thankfully, Cho has since adapted this recipe into an easy-to-make method on the stovetop, making the pine needles much faster to infuse by simply soaking them in a warm simple syrup. Cho is showing off a frothy, zero-proof highball he calls a “Pine Sudachi Spritz,” filled with pine needle syrup. This also requires mint, sudachi juice (from sour citrus fruits), and sparkling water. A guest said the N/A cocktail reminded her of a G&T.
“Pine also goes well with cucumbers,” Cho says. “They both have a refreshing taste.” And whenever Cho uses Quick Method’s pine syrup in a mixed drink, she adds citrus elements like yuzu or the aforementioned sudachi. “The acidity of the citrus also goes well with the pine needles.”
Cho says the key to creating a pine syrup with a scent reminiscent of a walk in a high-altitude forest is to forage from trees with good air quality in areas with cold winters. Spring when new trees grow. More mature conifers (and conifers from trees in warmer climates) tend to produce a woodier, less distinctive flavor. However, as an off-season workaround, using pine needle tea (available online) as the base for a simple syrup is a shortcut to adding alpine flavor. Using this method, Cho found that he needed to increase the amount of dried pine needles “to match the potency and freshness” of the newly harvested pine needles.
However, some bartenders prefer to recreate the characteristic aroma of pine through another product: pine buds (pine cones or gemstones). In the European Alps, pine buds are traditionally needed to make mugolio (“mugo” refers to mountain pine, Mugo pine), It can grow tall or exist as a bushy dwarf plant. “Olio” means oil in Italian) made by a process very similar to solip chung.
Keith Mrotek, a bartender at the Flora Room in Minneapolis, has been mixing drinks with bottles of Mugolio’s Primitivisia for years. Eleonora Cnacha, a hunter-gatherer who scours the Dolomites in search of the best cones. The Flora Room is currently offering Mediterranea, an energizing long-he drink that combines Mugorio with alpengin, alpine liqueur, ginger syrup and citrus. “Adamantly, I have ever used [mugolio] “I feel like gin-based cocktails magically take away some of the ‘piney’ flavor that gin cocktails have and make them a little more mellow,” Mrotek explains. “It becomes more complex than your mind can fathom. It’s like MSG or shio-koji.”
The same complexity is felt at Soul Salon in New York. There, the bartender’s Sungrae Choi homemade pineapple cordial uses both pine needle tea and dried pine buds (both available online). This cordial is used in a French 75-inspired cocktail he calls the “Soul Forest,” made with gin, pine soju, prosecco, and mint his bitters. The gin’s citrus aroma complements the pine cordial well. “We wanted cocktails to be brighter and more refreshing.”
Choi, who, like Cho, lived in Seoul, explains that pine trees are a touchstone of Korean culture and (like evergreens) represent honesty and perseverance. Choi said Koreans often go on therapeutic “forest bathing” sessions to connect with nature, and his cocktails aim to evoke that feeling. “We wanted to bring that pine flavor to the bar so people can drink cocktails and understand that part of Seoul.”
