Our Aperol Sour recipe is prepared quickly and easily without any protein using just 4 ingredients. The refreshing and fruity cocktail is perfect as an aperitif or as a cool drink on warm summer days. Including 5 tips to turn your original Aperol Sour recipe into the perfect drink.
The Aperol Sour is one of our absolute favorite aperitifs. It combines the bittersweet and slightly tart note of Aperol with the sour taste of lemon, sweet sugar syrup and fruity orange. The taste highlight of the classic sour cocktail is the freshly squeezed lemon and orange juice with which it is prepared. This means that the Aperol Sour tastes much better than with (even expensive) store-bought juice. And if you like cocktails with Aperol as much as we do, you will find our best drinks with Aperol here.
What is an Aperol Sour?
An Aperol Sour is, as the name suggests, a sour cocktail. This is characterized by the fact that it usually consists of a spirit (this is Aperol), an acidic ingredient (lemon juice) and a sweet ingredient (sugar syrup). There is often also a (mild) fruity component. For this one it’s orange juice. This gives the sour a very balanced taste of fresh, tart, sweet, sour and fruity components, which are well mixed by shaking vigorously with ice cubes.
Many sour recipes also add egg whites (or a vegan alternative) to create a creamy texture and a foamy surface. If you want to compare the two variants, you can find our recipe for an Aperol Sour with egg white here (link coming soon).
Aperol Sour made from only 4 ingredients
- Aperol is currently the best-known Italian liqueur and provides our sour with a bright orange color and a bittersweet taste. Another Aperol recipe that you should definitely try is our Aperol cocktail with lime, rhubarb and vodka.
- lemon juice is a typical ingredient in sour cocktails. Its acidity is intended to balance the sweetness of the Aperol and the sugar syrup. The juice should always be freshly squeezed. You need one lemon for 2 servings.
- sugar syrup rounds off the taste and balances the bitterness of the Aperol and the acidity of the lemon. You can easily make sugar syrup from equal parts sugar and water, which you bring to the boil briefly.
- orange juice provides a fruity note in the Aperol Sour and makes the taste a little milder and rounder. Here, too, you should definitely make sure to use freshly squeezed juice. You need one orange for 2 servings.
6 tips for the perfect Aperol Sour
Here you will find our six tips to make your drink the perfect Aperol Sour:
- Fresh ingredients: Be sure to use freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, which you only squeeze shortly before preparation. It takes a little more effort, but it makes a huge difference in the taste.
- Shake: Make sure to shake the Aperol Sour long enough so that the ingredients combine well. It should be at least 20 seconds.
- Garnish and serving: The sour is best served in a tumbler (flat drinking glass or whiskey glass) and decorated with an orange slice and/or lemon zest.
- Pre-cool: We recommend pre-chilling all ingredients in the refrigerator, as the cocktail will then be less “watered down” by the melting ice cubes when shaking.
- sweetness: Depending on your personal taste, you can adjust the amount of sugar syrup up or down a little. Since this is the balancing counterpart to the bitter Aperol and sour lemon juice, you shouldn’t do without it completely.
- Alcohol-free: For an alcohol-free version of the Aperol Sour, you can simply replace the Aperol with Sanbitter*. Or you can serve your guests our non-alcoholic Aperol Spritz.
Our Aperol Sour recipe is prepared quickly and easily without any protein using just 4 ingredients. The refreshing and fruity cocktail is perfect as an aperitif or as a cool drink on warm summer days.
Suitable recipe recommendations
120ml
Information for 2 glasses
- All ingredients should be refrigerator cold. Wash the lemon, halve it and squeeze it. Cut off a few strips of lemon peel with the zester and set aside for decoration. Also wash the orange and cut it in half. Cut off a slice of orange and set aside for decoration. Squeeze the remaining orange.
4 cl lemon juice, 6 cl orange juice
- Add Aperol, lemon juice, sugar syrup, orange juice and 6 ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for about 20-30 seconds. Then strain over the sieve into the two tumbler glasses. Add 3 ice cubes to each glass (optional) and garnish with lemon zest and half an orange slice.
8 cl Aperol, 4 cl lemon juice, 4 cl sugar syrup, 12 ice cubes, 6 cl orange juice
- In cocktail recipes, the ingredients are usually given in “cl” (=centiliters). 1 cl = 10 ml. So you need 80ml Aperol, 40ml each lemon juice and sugar syrup and 60ml orange juice.
- If you pre-chill the glasses well beforehand (e.g. in the freezer), you can leave out the ice cubes when serving.
You might also like these recipes
Pinterest flyers
* Note: This post contains affiliate links, for example to Amazon.de. This means that we receive a small commission as soon as you purchase something using the link. This doesn’t change anything for you or the price. We also only recommend products if we are convinced of them.
