Trinidad Sour
A sour built on a full measure of Angostura bitters, with orgeat, lemon and a little rye.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 3 min
- Strength
- 19% ABV
- Glassware
- Coupe glass
- Base
- liqueur led
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- Angostura bitters45ml
A full measure — not a dash
- Orgeat30ml
- Fresh lemon juice23ml
- Rye whisky15ml
Method
- Chill a coupe glass.
- Measure the bitters with a jigger — a 200ml bottle holds about four drinks' worth.
- Add the bitters, orgeat, lemon juice and rye to a shaker filled with ice.
- Shake hard for about 12 seconds; the bitters will foam a little on their own.
- Strain into the chilled coupe.
Compared with the IBA specification
The International Bartenders Association lists this drink among its New Era. Its specification is a standard for training and competition — one reference, not the only right way to make the drink.
CocktailHQ
- 45ml angostura bitters
- 30ml orgeat
- 22.5ml fresh lemon juice
- 15ml rye whisky
IBA
- 45 ml Angostura Bitters
- 30 ml Orgeat Syrup
- 22.5 ml Fresh Lemon Juice
- 15 ml Rye Whiskey
IBA ingredients as published at iba-world.com, retrieved 29 October 2026.
Allergen information
Contains an ingredient commonly associated with:
- Tree nuts (orgeat)
Products vary, and this describes ingredients rather than the bottles you use — check every label. It is not a guarantee that a drink is suitable for anyone with an allergy. How this is worked out
Your version
— private notes, kept on this device
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Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A large jar with a tight lid.
Glass and ice
No ice in the glass
Served up, the drink was chilled and diluted in the shaker or mixing glass and goes into a chilled glass without ice.
Over a large cube it stays cold longer, but keeps diluting — it becomes a different, slowly lengthening drink.
About 161ml once mixed
The recipe's coupe glass is typically 150–250ml.
- Workable:
- nick & nora glass (169ml or more), martini glass, champagne flute (169ml or more), rocks glass, wine glass
- Unsuitable:
- highball glass
Needs a glass of about 169–179ml brimful.
How this is worked out
- A drink with no ice needs a little of the glass left empty — about a tenth — so it can be carried without spilling and has room for aroma.
- Filled to the top with cubes or packed crushed ice, roughly half to three-fifths of a glass is left for the drink.
- A drink built in the glass dilutes from the ice already there, so its melt water is not added on top.
- One large cube takes up roughly 65–125ml, from a sphere to a 5cm cube.
- Glass capacities are brimful and vary by maker — your own glass, measured with water, is the figure to trust.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Angostura Bitters
No other bitters is a like-for-like substitute at this volume; the drink is defined by Angostura's particular spice and strength.
Instead of Rye Whisky
Best substitute: Bourbon
This is the modifier in this drink.
Quantity: Same amount
Flavour impact: Slightly rounder and sweeter; at 15ml the difference is small.
What changes
Expect more sweetness, less bitterness and less strength. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Sweetness ↑
- The drink will land sweeter, which also makes it read as less sharp and slightly heavier even though nothing else changed.
- Bitterness ↓
- Losing bitterness makes the drink rounder and more approachable, and takes away the structure that stopped it tasting like squash.
- Strength ↓
- Bourbon is 40% ABV against 45%. A weaker bottle makes a softer drink — genuinely pleasant, but a different drink from the one written down.
- Character
- you lose spicy, dry, peppery and assertive, and you gain sweet, caramel, vanilla and oaky. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Cut the syrup or sugar back — start by halving it and taste before adding any back.
- A dash of bitters restores some of the backbone without changing anything else.
- Pour a fraction more, or shorten the dilution slightly, to keep the shape of the original.
High confidenceShifts the drink
Make it better
- It has to be Angostura. Other aromatic bitters differ in strength, sugar and bitterness, and at 45ml the differences are the drink.
- Remove the dasher top to pour the bitters, or it will take minutes to measure.
- Orgeat is the other half of the drink: a good almond orgeat, not an almond-flavoured sugar syrup.
- Chill the glass in the freezer for a few minutes beforehand — a warm glass takes the edge off a well-made drink fast.
- Shake hard for 12-15 seconds with plenty of ice — a proper shake chills and dilutes the drink in one step.
- Use freshly squeezed citrus juice rather than bottled — the aromatic oils fade fast once juiced, so squeeze just before making the drink.
- Adjust sweetness gradually and taste as you go — it's easy to add more syrup, impossible to take it out.
Rescue this drink
- Overwhelmingly bitter
- Check the orgeat measure — at 30ml it should balance. A thin orgeat may need 5ml more.
- Tastes cloying
- Your orgeat is very sweet. Add 5ml more lemon.
- Tastes thin, with no weight to itgeneral guidance
- A short shaken drink with nothing rich in it depends on sugar and dilution for body. Try a slightly richer syrup — two parts sugar to one of water rather than equal parts — which adds weight without adding much more sweetness. Egg white or aquafaba does the same job more dramatically, and turns it into a sour.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A large jar with a tight lid.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 3 stable components days ahead and add fresh lemon juice when you pour.
Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.
- Fresh lemon juice:
- Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
Make it lighter
As written, about 2.7 UK units at roughly 19% ABV once diluted. 2 of six ways to lighten it work for this recipe. Units are an estimate of what is in the glass, not advice about drinking.
A smaller serveSupportedabout 1.8 units, 19% ABV
Every measure at two-thirds. The balance is untouched because the proportions are; the only trade-off is a smaller drink — use a smaller glass so it doesn't look stingy.
- 30ml Angostura Bitters
- 20ml Orgeat Syrup
- 15ml Lemon Juice
- 10ml Rye Whisky
A longer serveSupportedsame 2.7 units, 13% ABV
Spirit, citrus and sugar topped with soda is how a sour becomes a Collins or a fizz — a well-trodden route. Note: the same alcohol in more liquid — weaker per sip, not fewer units.
- 45ml Angostura Bitters
- 30ml Orgeat Syrup
- 23ml Lemon Juice
- 15ml Rye Whisky
- 75ml Soda Water
Not recommended for this drink: reverse the ratio; split the base with a lower-strength modifier; give it the spritz treatment; replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle
- Reverse the ratio. There is no wine-strength modifier — vermouth, sherry or Lillet — to swap measures with.
- Split the base with a lower-strength modifier. The recipe has no wine-strength modifier to move measure into, and choosing one for it would be writing a new drink.
- Give it the spritz treatment. There is no distilled spirit at the base to swap for sparkling wine.
- Replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle. No bottle in this recipe has an alcohol-free counterpart in the catalogue, and we won't name one we haven't written up.
Or make something lighter by design: Virgin Daiquiri. All lighter drinks
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
sweet, sharp, light — a sour-structured drink served straight up, no ice.
Sweet
Dry → Sweet
Openly sweet, and balanced by something else rather than hidden.
What drives it: Orgeat — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Sharp
Soft → Sharp
Properly sharp. This is the axis the drink is built on.
What drives it: Fresh lemon juice — supplies the acidity.
Strongly bitter
Gentle → Bitter
Assertively bitter. An acquired taste, and deliberately so.
What drives it: Angostura bitters — provides the bitterness.
Light
Light → Rich
Light-bodied. It refreshes rather than satisfies, which is usually the intention.
What drives it: Orgeat — adds most of the weight.
Bold
Delicate → Bold
Bold. This drink is the loudest thing on the table.
What drives it: Angostura bitters — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- Baking spiceLeads
From Angostura bitters, Rye whisky
- Citrus peelLeads
From Fresh lemon juice
- Nutty
From Orgeat
- Floral
From Orgeat
Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — open one for the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sweet
- Likely cause
- Orgeat is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
- What to change
- Cut orgeat by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
- What that does
- The drink will read sharper as well as less sweet, because the acid stops being balanced.
- The trade-off
- That is usually the intention, but it is a bigger change than it sounds — overshoot and the drink tips into sour.
It's too sour
- Likely cause
- Fresh lemon juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
- What to change
- Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
- What that does
- Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight.
- The trade-off
- Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry instead. Small additions, tasting between each, are slower but cheaper than a rebuild.
It's too bitter
- Likely cause
- Angostura bitters is doing this deliberately, but bitterness also builds across a drink rather than announcing itself — the last mouthful is more bitter than the first even though nothing changed.
- What to change
- Lengthen it slightly, or add a small amount of sweetener. Do not add more of anything sour; acid sharpens bitterness rather than covering it.
- What that does
- The bitterness softens and the drink gets longer or rounder.
- The trade-off
- If you were hoping to keep it short and strong, this is the trade you are making — and sugar added to a bitter drink can make it taste cloying rather than balanced.
It's too strong
- Likely cause
- Angostura bitters dominates by design here — this is a drink built to be sipped, and the proportion of spirit to everything else is the point of it.
- What to change
- Shake a little longer, or add a measured 5–10ml of water. For a lasting change, pour a smaller measure of the base and keep the rest of the spec the same.
- What that does
- Alcohol presence drops and the aromatics open up — a slightly diluted spirit-forward drink usually smells better, not worse.
- The trade-off
- Go too far and it stops being the drink it was: spirit-forward drinks lose their character faster than long drinks do when watered.
It tastes harsh or hot
- Likely cause
- Almost always under-dilution. Shaking is how this drink gets its water — around 30% of the finished drink — and stopping early leaves alcohol heat that dilution would have rounded off.
- What to change
- Shake hard for the full time with plenty of ice; a short, gentle shake chills a little and dilutes even less.
- What that does
- The heat recedes, the drink tastes rounder, and flavours that were masked by alcohol come forward.
- The trade-off
- Dilution is a target, not a direction: past it the drink goes watery and loses concentration, which is harder to undo than harshness.
It's watery
- Likely cause
- Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
- What to change
- Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
- What that does
- More flavour concentration at the same temperature.
- The trade-off
- Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — the aim is the right amount of water, not the least.
It isn't cold enough
- Likely cause
- Served without ice, this drink is at its coldest the moment it leaves the shaker and warms from the first sip. A room-temperature glass takes a surprising amount of that cold straight back out.
- What to change
- Chill the coupe glass first — ten minutes in the freezer, or filled with ice and water while you mix — and strain the moment you stop shaking.
- What that does
- The drink stays in its best range for longer, and the first sip tastes the way it was balanced.
- The trade-off
- Very cold drinks smell of less, because aroma needs some warmth to leave the glass. A smaller serve that is finished cold beats a bigger one that is finished warm.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- This drink's aroma comes from baking spice and citrus peel, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
- What to change
- Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
- What that does
- Aroma arrives before flavour does, so the whole drink reads as more intense without a single measure changing.
- The trade-off
- The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 4 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a drink this simple is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness.
- The trade-off
- Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one — and a better bottle costs more.
Each drink comes out different
- Likely cause
- With 4 measured components, a few millilitres' drift in each adds up, and a shaker loaded for four chills and dilutes differently from one made for one.
- What to change
- Measure every pour with a jigger, and shake no more than two drinks at a time. Pre-mix Angostura bitters, orgeat, rye whisky in a bottle beforehand so each round starts from the same base.
- What that does
- The fifth drink of the evening tastes like the first, at the same strength and balance.
- The trade-off
- Smaller batches mean more rounds of shaking or stirring; pre-mixing saves time but only for what keeps.
Something else wrong? Open this drink in the Recipe Doctor.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 3/5
- Sourness
- 3/5
- Bitterness
- 4/5
- Strength
- 3/5
- Fruitiness
- 1/5
- Freshness
- 1/5
- Creaminess
- 1/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate only- Calories
- 240 kcal
- Sugar
- 22 g
- Carbohydrates
- 24 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.69
- US standard drinks
- 1.5
- ABV
- 19%
- Serving size
- 140 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~147 kcal from alcohol, ~93 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 180–300 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes Angostura at 44.7% ABV, rye at 45%, orgeat at about 65g sugar per 100ml, and about 25% dilution from shaking.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Trinidad Sour with bourbon
Bourbon in place of rye.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A shaken build: a sour-structured liqueur-led-based drink, served straight up, no ice — light and lively in the mouth.
Sour-structured
Something sour and something sweet held in balance over a base — the structure behind the whole sour family and everything descended from it.
Base
Angostura bitters
Modifier
Rye whisky
Sour element
Fresh lemon juice
Sweet element
Orgeat
Drinks built this way are collected as the Sour family.
Technique
shaken
Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.
A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.
What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.
Everything about shaking →How the technique works →Dilution
During mixing, then strained
Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Coupe glass · 140ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 140ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Shaking whips air through the drink, giving a lighter, briefly frothy body that settles as it stands.
No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Trinidad Sour
Created by Giuseppe González at the Clover Club in Brooklyn around 2009; added to the IBA's New Era list.
Matches the IBA spec: 45ml Angostura, 30ml orgeat, 22.5ml lemon and 15ml rye.
Family
Sour2 parts spirit · 1 part citrus · 1 part sweetener — shaken, strained, served up or over ice.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Amaro SourAmaro Sour
You may like this because it's part of the same sour family as the Trinidad Sour.
- Paper PlanePaper Plane
You may like this because it shares a bitter-forward profile with the Trinidad Sour, but uses whisky instead of liqueur-led.
Last WordYou may like this because it shares a sour-forward profile with the Trinidad Sour, but uses gin instead of liqueur-led.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
How far a bottle goes
Drinks per bottle, which bottle runs out first, batching — and the cost, at your own prices.
Recipe confidence
A recent drink with a known creator and a stable spec.