In case you haven’t noticed, we sell pretty much all major syrup and puree brands available in the UK. But with so many brands, where do you start and what is the right product for you?

Lets dive in to some of our products to give you a little unbiased guide.

The point to note here, there is absolutely no right or wrong. But what I want to emphasise, is that not all products are suitable for all venues or home bars.

Even the “Best” Puree brand, may be the completely wrong product for your business. And some of you using syrups, may benefit by upgrading to a Puree to make a more premium drink…but only if the volume is there.

While I do list "Best Before's" below, the one big piece of advice I’ll always stand by;

👉 Purees - if you can’t use a whole carton within 6-8 days, don’t buy it
👉 Syrups - if you can’t use a whole bottle within a month, don’t buy it.

To make money, you want to be turning stock over as quickly as possibly. If you have something that sits around for 2,3,4 months, it’s essentially dead stock. In a Hospitality scenario, you need to liquidate all your assets as quickly as possible. Dead stock on the back of your bar is not making you money.

Browse our Brands

• Bristol Syrup Co
• Boiron
• Monin
• ODK
• REÀL 
• 1883 Maison Routin
• Funkin

PUREES

🍊Boiron

If you’re looking for a Puree with no added sugar or fillers, Boiron is your brand.

Boiron works directly with farmers all over the world to bring you the very best quality fruit. And then when it’s harvested and bought back to their HQ in the south of France, where they’ve spent millions on their flash pasteurisation techniques, so they don’t have to rely on sugar and preservatives to keep the colour as vibrant as the day it was picked, and the flavour is spot on.

Pros

• 100% Fruit*
• B-Corp company (one of just 8000+ companies worldwide)
• No Sugar
• No Fillers
• Long Life & Shelf Stable until opening
• Can adjust to taste with your own sugar levels
• Currently our Cheapest fruit “puree”.

*some are 99.3% to allow for natural colour like Beetroot - eg Raspberry.

Cons

• Once opened must be kept chilled taking up fridge space.
• Once opened use within 8-15 days, depending on fruit.
• You do actually need to balance with Sugar, unlike a REÀL for example, so can be a slower pour

🍊Bristol & Funkin

Funkin is a brand trusted by bartenders for decades and has been pretty much the industry standard in puree since 2005. Available in many different flavours. Bristol is the new kid on the block, and the big selling point for them, is that they come in SMALLER 600ml Pouches, which is perfect for lower volume venues.

Pros

• 85% to 90% Fruit content depending on flavour. The rest of the pouch is Sugar.
• Handy pouches, meaning you can usually squeeze out every last drop of puree.
• Long Life & Shelf Stable until opening.
• Can adjust to taste with your own sugar levels
• Bristol comes in smaller Pouches, great for lower volume Bars.

Cons

• Contains sugar
• Once opened must be kept chilled
• Once opened use within 8-15 days, depending on fruit.
• You do actually need to balance with Sugar, unlike a REÀL for example
• Some fruits can look dull in colour because of pasteurisation techniques.
• Kilo pouches can be misleading. Lemon & Lime juice for example should still contain about a litre of liquid. But other fruits are heavier, meaning 1kg can give you a usable quantity of circa 850-900ml. 

FRUITY MIXES

🍊Monin Le Fruit

A great addition to Bars as they are long life and shelf stable, even after opening. They are the highest Fruit content Fruity Mix, a cross over term for Purees + Sugar, most flavours containing 50.1% Fruit. The rest of the bottle is sugars and other anti-oxidants to preserve the taste.

Pros

• Long Life & Shelf Stable before opening.
• Balanced with Sugar, rarely need to add any other sweetener when making cocktails.
• Can be kept ambient after opening.
• Quick and easy Cocktails.
• Great bottle for pouring & Storage
• Great on Toast! 😇

Cons

• Recommended to be used within 4 weeks after opening. Will the product go off? No, but they can’t guarantee that it’ll taste as good after the 4 weeks.
• The 50.1% Fruit is sometimes bolstered with Concentrate & flavours. So some (not all) are not an out and out 50.1% of 100% Fruit Puree for example. To iterate, concentrate is not a bad thing at all, its just not the same thing as a puree like Boiron or Funkin.

🍊ODK Fruity Mix

A similar product to Monin Le Fruit, however some fruits in the range vary in fruit content. Most are 50%, but some are lower. The rest of the bottle is sugars and other anti-oxidants to preserve the bottle, similar to Monin Le Fruit. 

Pros

• Possibly the easiest bottle to use.
• Long Life & Shelf stable, including after opening.
• Can be kept ambient after opening.
• Great range in flavours
• Interestingly, there isn’t a “Once Opened, Best before”… there is only a Best Before. So in theory, they hint at it being fine to be kept open for months. Again, will the product go off? No, but there will be a slight deterioration of colour, smell & taste after 30-60 days. 

Cons

• Some people don’t like the bottle design.
• Some flavours are a little tart and do require adjusting with sugar syrup.
• The fruit content is not 100% Puree, it’s made up of concentrates and natural flavours. So even if it is 50% fruit, that 50% is not 100% puree. Generally Monin Le Fruit is seen as the higher quality, because they contain Fruit Puree.

PREMIUM SYRUPS

🍊REÀL

I’ve chosen to make REÀL it’s own category because it doesn’t quite fit in Fruity Mixes and although its a Syrup, its completely different to other syrup brands.

REÀL has the highest fruit content of any syrup brand by a long way. Legally to be a syrup, it has to be at 40% fruit or less. And REÀL is nearly all 40%… with the odd few flavours a touch less.

Pros

• The 40% Fruit, is typically all real fruit in puree form. Not a concentrate.
• They work with Farmers all over the world and like Boiron, disclose exactly where the fruit has come from.
• Quick and very easy to use
• Long life and Shelf Stable
• Once opened, ambient - they are fine at room temperature for a month
• To prolong life, keep in the fridge and they’ll be good for 3 months. Will they go off? No. But after 3 months, you may notice slight colour, smell and taste deterioration
• Bottle design is easy to use.

Cons

• Also bottle design. To save leakage, the bottle should be stored upside down.
• Pretty much all syrups are balanced with sugar for the mass market taste buds - which is a massive pro. However, if you require less sweet drinks, you typically struggle due to the 60% sugar content. That said, I frequently use 10ml of flavours in Cocktails like Manhattans and Old Fashioned's and they're perfect. 

SYRUPS

Bristol, Monin, ODK, 1883, Funkin

I’m going to bracket them all together as it's all pretty much the same theory.

Typically all these syrups range between 10% and 20% fruit content. But unlike REÀL, the fruit content will be Concentrates, Juices and Natural Flavours. As a very rough general guide; the cheaper the syrup, the less fruit/flavour content it'll contain. Therefore, you may need to use more in your drinks. So Cheap may not = Cheaper!

Obviously all brands will taste different, a Monin Strawberry Syrup will taste different to ODK Strawberry Syrup. So it's down to you to pick your favourite brand and decide which syrups taste better in your drinks.

Pros

• Typically the cheapest option to flavour drinks.
• Long Life & Shelf stable
• All are best before 3 months after opening - but are any going to go off? No. Just be aware like all other products, taste, smell and colour may deteriorate after 90 days. Some flavours quicker than others.
• Huge range of flavours
• Great bottle designs as they mimic spirit bottles.
• Very easy to use.
• Allows you to carry a big range with minimal risk for wastage.
• Can be paired with the likes of Boiron, Bristol & Funkin Purees for interesting drinks; i.e using a Passion Fruit Puree with Vanilla Syrup.

Cons

• Don’t give you the vibrancy or texture of a REÀL, Fruity mix or Puree. So a 20ml measure of Syrup is not the same as other categories.
• With some brands, you may have to make the cocktail a lot sweeter, to carry more flavour through.
• Some flavours may not be as authentic tasting compared to any of the above categories, simply because they do not contain a Puree.

MY PERSONAL CONCLUSION

I get this question every week without fail. And I’ve often thought about the answer - what one brand would I stand behind. I really want to give an answer but I can’t. Even if you are a Bristol, Funkin or Boiron Puree devotee, you need a syrup to balance, and probably other flavours of Syrup. So by default, you need a range of products, unless you just make your own sugar syrup.

I do really like REÀL, I've personally used them for many, many years. But then I've also used a lot of Monin over years, and more recently, Bristol Syrups. I will go on record and say the Bristol Raspberry Syrup is quite possibly the best Raspberry Syrup ever created. But then as a Rum & Tiki fan, I couldn't live without my REÀL Guava, Passion Fruit & Pineapple Syrups! And in a very recent blind tasting, I was blown away by Monin's Morello Cherry syrup.

In short, I love all the brands, because it enables me to put quirky riffs on cocktails by swapping out plain sugar for a flavoured syrup.

My advice...

These products are cheap enough to grab a couple of different brands and have your own Tasting. So what I would personally do is Blind Taste them Neat, then blind Taste them in a Cocktail. Blind tasting is the ONLY way to judge any product. 

I see so many Bars simply buy on price and their Cocktails end up being a bit Meh. Then, when you swap in a different brand, it instantly enhances the drink, while maybe only costing at the very most, 5p more a Cocktail! 

I've even seen a major Coffee chain refuse to use a certain brands Caramel syrup, because it reacts badly in their coffees. However, they're totally happy with other flavours. Is that the Syrup, or is that the Coffee Beans 🤷‍♂️

I think in general, the majority of the drinks industry agrees with this; no one brand absolutely nails every flavour they make. But a lot of that will also be because everyone has a different palate. I might prefer REÀL Passion Fruit, you may prefer Boiron Passion Fruit with a Sugar Syrup. Who is right, who is wrong?! 

So always buy the product that makes your drinks taste the best, to you and your team. If you all think that's the best version of the Drink, the chances are, the majority of your customers will think the same.