Super Juice

In 2020, Louisville, KY bartender Nickle Morris, working with Ryan LeClaire at Expo, introduced the cocktail world to Super Juice, a technique that allows bartenders to get dramatically more usable citrus juice from lemons and limes while reducing waste and cost. Instead of simply squeezing a fruit and throwing away the peel, Super Juice uses the peel, fresh juice, water, and food-grade citric and/or malic acid to reproduce the acidity and fresh citrus character needed in cocktails.

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1. 2020 — Nickle Morris & Ryan LeClaire — introduced the original Super Juice / oleo citrate concept.

2. Kevin Kos — modified and popularized his own Super Juice method.

3. Darcy O’Neil — Art of Drink — chemist and bartender who developed an Improved Super Juice method using a high-powered blender to extract citrus oils, eliminating the oleo-citrate waiting period.

4. Brian Tasch — developed Pseudo Citrus, including Lemon Aid and Lime Support.

5. Jazz Wang — Very Good Drinks — developed another variation on the Super Juice technique.

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The process begins by peeling the citrus and combining the peels with powdered acids, which pull the flavorful essential oils from the peel. The mixture is then combined with water and the freshly squeezed juice, blended, and strained. Depending on the recipe, a handful of lemons or limes can produce around a liter or more of usable citrus juice, rather than the relatively small amount you'd get by squeezing the fruit alone. It also keeps its fresh character considerably longer than ordinary fresh-squeezed citrus when refrigerated.

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Super Juice isn't just useful for cocktails. It's excellent for lemonade, limeade, punches, Margaritas, Daiquiris, Whiskey Sours, batched cocktails, and anywhere else you'd normally use fresh lemon or lime juice. It can reduce citrus cost and waste while giving a bar much more consistent acidity from batch to batch. Modern recipes and ratios vary, and bartenders continue experimenting with the technique.

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➜ After I made Super Lemon Juice for the first time, I couldn't tell the difference between it and fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Then I used just six lemons (about 5 ounces of fresh-squeezed juice) to make two gallons of lemonade for a BBQ. Everyone was blown away by how good it was. The BBQ host immediately wanted to start a lemonade stand after realizing how inexpensive it was to make.

Apparently, all we needed was six lemons and a business plan.

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Good to know: Although Super Juice was introduced in 2020, the basic idea behind it is centuries old. As far back as the 1600s, punch makers used sugar to extract the flavorful oils from citrus peels, creating oleo-saccharum (“oil-sugar”). Super Juice uses a similar principle, except citric and malic acids pull the oils from the peel to create oleo citrate, which is then combined with water and fresh juice. So, like many things in modern bartending, what's old is new again—we just added a gram scale and gave it a cooler name.

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Basic Super Juice Method

I won't give all five bartenders' recipes here, because lemon and lime require different acid ratios, and the technique has continued evolving since Morris introduced it. Instead, I'd say:

You'll need: clean, washed citrus fruit,
food-grade citric acid, —​SHOP
food-grade malic acid, —SHOP

a gram kitchen scale, —SHOP

fine-mesh strainer, conical sieve or nut milk bags or both, —SHOP

clean, sterilized glass bottles or jars, —SHOP

filtered water, a vertical vegetable peeler, and a blender.

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1. Wash and dry citrus. Carefully peel the citrus, avoiding as much bitter white pith as possible.

2. Weigh the peels.

3. Add the appropriate amount of citric and/or malic acid.

4. Allow the acids to extract the citrus oils.

5. Juice the peeled fruit.

6. Add water and the fresh juice.

7. Blend and fine-strain.

8. Bottle, label, date, and refrigerate. Will stay good for 2 weeks.

For exact ratios, I'm sending you to Kevin Kos's free Super Juice Calculator. You enter the weight of your citrus peels and it calculates the acid and water amounts for lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, and even kumquat Super Juice.

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➜ For me, I used Darcy's method: a high-powered blender to extract citrus oils, eliminating the oleo-citrate waiting period. I mean, he has a chemist background.
And I used both a conical sieve and nut milk bags to fine-strain.  —SHOP

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Carbonated Mixers

Most bars stock cola, diet cola, ginger ale, lemon-lime soda, soda water/club soda, tonic water, and sparkling mineral water.

Other possibilities include ginger beer, root beer, grapefruit soda, flavored sparkling waters, sparkling lemonade, and premium craft tonics and sodas.

Good to know: Ginger ale and ginger beer are not the same thing. Ginger beer generally has a much stronger ginger flavor and is the traditional mixer for drinks such as a Moscow Mule and Dark 'n' Stormy.

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And tonic water isn't soda water. Tonic contains quinine and sweetener. Soda water is basically carbonated water.

Your Gin & Tonic knows the difference.

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Sweeteners & Syrups

Granulated sugar doesn't dissolve particularly well in a cold cocktail, so bartenders commonly turn it into simple syrup first.

Basic simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water. No fancy equipment required. If you can dissolve sugar, congratulations—you've entered the syrup business.
 

Today's bars use an enormous variety of sweeteners, including:

Simple syrup • rich simple syrup • demerara syrup • honey syrup • agave nectar • maple syrup • grenadine • gomme syrup • orgeat • coconut cream • fruit purées • flavored syrups

And then bartenders start infusing them with herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, peppers, teas, coffee, and whatever else isn't nailed down.

Simple vs. Rich Simple Syrup

Simple syrup: 1 part sugar + 1 part water.

Rich simple syrup: 2 parts sugar + 1 part water.

Rich syrup is sweeter, so you generally use less of it in a cocktail.

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Dairy, Eggs & Creamy Stuff

Traditional creamy cocktail ingredients include milk, half-and-half, heavy cream, ice cream, eggnog, eggs, and unsalted butter.

Modern bars may also stock oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, and coconut cream.

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Good to know: Aquafaba—the liquid from cooked chickpeas—is sometimes used instead of egg white to create foam in cocktails.
 

For cocktails containing egg white, use pasteurized egg whites or pasteurized eggs when the egg won't be cooked. The FDA recommends pasteurized eggs or egg products in uncooked preparations and beverages containing eggs.

Your Whiskey Sour does not need a side of Salmonella.

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Other Mixers

Depending on the bar, you'll also find:

Bloody Mary mix • Margarita mix • Piña Colada mix • sour mix • strawberry mix • apple cider • coffee • cold brew • espresso • tea • hot chocolate • coconut water • hot water • shrubs • drinking vinegars • verjus

You can buy many cocktail mixes premade, and quality varies enormously.

But when practical, fresh-made wins.

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Added Ingredients

Not everything added to a cocktail technically qualifies as a mixer. Bartenders also use small amounts of ingredients to adjust flavor, aroma, texture, heat, or seasoning.

These include fresh herbs, spices, bitters, tinctures, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, steak sauce, horseradish, jams, preserves, marmalades, salts, peppers, and vinegars.

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Saline Solution

Just as a pinch of salt can improve food, a few drops of diluted salt water can enhance sweetness, soften bitterness, and make flavors pop in a cocktail.

Yes, we've reached the point where bartenders season drinks.

Grandma was right about salt, too.

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Shrubs

Sweet-tart drinking vinegars generally made from fruit, sugar, and vinegar. They're excellent with spirits, soda water, or in nonalcoholic cocktails.

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Verjus

The tart juice of unripe grapes. It provides acidity without tasting exactly like lemon or lime and works well in cocktails, especially wine- and spirit-forward drinks.