Lavender syrup substitutes

Not a substitute, the recipe, and it is easier than most people expect. Heat the syrup, take it off the heat, add the buds, cover, and start tasting at five minutes. Strain the moment it tastes right.

Best for

lavender lattes, lavender lemonade, gin cocktails, shortbread and icings

Fifteen minutes is the ceiling. Push past it and the syrup goes from floral to soapy and medicinal, which is the single most common failure with lavender and is irreversible in a strong batch. Use the buds, not the stems or leaves, which are much more resinous.

Steep two Earl Grey tea bags in a cup of hot simple syrup for five minutes. The bergamot oil gives you an unmistakably perfumed, citrus-floral aroma in the same register as lavender, without the piney camphor note. A lavender latte made this way becomes an Earl Grey latte, which is honestly excellent.

Best for

lattes and coffee drinks, gin cocktails, baking, lemonade

Do not steep the tea longer than five minutes or the tannins make the syrup bitter and drying. If you can find bergamot-heavy Earl Grey or Lady Grey, they are more floral and less tannic and work even better here.

The closest thing to what most people imagine lavender tastes like: sweet, perfumed and floral. Rose is rounder, jammier and more obviously feminine in flavour, and it lacks lavender's resinous edge entirely, so the result is prettier and less complex.

Best for

lemonade, gin and vodka drinks, desserts and icings, Middle Eastern sweets

Rosewater is extremely potent, so measure it rather than pouring. A quarter teaspoon per ounce is generous. Going further tips it into the same soapy territory that over-steeped lavender does, for the same reason: too much floral aromatic in too little liquid.

Honeyed, hay-like and gently floral. It is a much quieter flavour than lavender, so it works beautifully in a lemonade where you want a soft floral background and gets completely lost in a milky latte or against a strong spirit.

Best for

lemonade and iced tea, light spritzes, delicate desserts

You can push the strength safely, since chamomile does not turn soapy the way lavender does. Three or four bags and a longer steep gives a more assertive syrup without any risk of overdoing it.

Rosemary is a close botanical cousin and shares lavender's resinous, piney, slightly camphorous backbone without any of the perfume. In a gin and lemon drink it is genuinely convincing. In a milky latte it tastes savoury and wrong.

Best for

gin cocktails, lemonade, grapefruit drinks, savoury-leaning sweets

Use half the steeping time you would give lavender, because rosemary gives up its oils quickly and an over-steeped rosemary syrup tastes like pine cleaner. Pull it at five minutes and taste.

Distinctly floral, honeyed and a little muscat-grapey. It occupies the same aromatic space as lavender in a gin drink and is far more forgiving, since it never turns soapy. Most elderflower cordials are sweeter than a 1:1 syrup, so scale back elsewhere.

Best for

gin and sparkling wine drinks, spritzes, lemonade

The best all-round swap for cocktails specifically, because it is designed for exactly this job. Less convincing in coffee, where the light, grapey aroma disappears under the espresso.