Best Lavender Syrup for Coffee and More

Lavender treats on menus have always been like high school crushes: exciting but often disappointing. But now I have been asked in a professional capacity to give lavender another chance and find the best lavender syrup for coffee and beyond. 

How I tested lavender syrups

My process was very simple: I tried each of the syrups in two ways—straight off of a spoon, and mixed into a little bit of unsweetened vanilla almond milk in quantities according to each syrup’s instructions. 

While I chose to mix the lavender syrups into a cozy-yet-slightly-bougie midday beverage, lavender syrup is (in theory) a sweet, aromatic syrup that can add floral notes to any number of drinks (cocktails and lemonades are popular in addition to lattes), or flavor baked goods and desserts.

What I looked for in the best lavender syrup

In my taste test, I was looking for syrups that avoided the pitfalls that turned me off from the flavor for so long. The main ones were “medicinal,” “painfully reminiscent of grandma’s bathwater,” and “did someone replace my milk with a melted Yankee candle?” But I also wanted something that actually tasted distinctly like lavender, instead of a nebulous sweetness. Was it a lot to ask? I didn’t think so. Some syrups did not rise to the occasion, but here are the ones that did.

Best lavender syrup brands, ranked

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Best Strong Lavender Flavor

Portland Syrups Lavender Syrup

Amazon

Short of plowing a lavender field with your open mouth, this is probably the most lavender flavor you’ll get out of a lavender syrup—but its potency can also be its downfall. It has a pure, natural tasting lavender flavor, but it is quite strong. So, be careful not to add too much. It’s true that with great power comes great responsibility, so to avoid the soapiness that’s sullied lavender’s reputation for so long, please exercise caution.

Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon

Rating:

7/10

Sporks

Best Mild Lavender Flavor

Torani Lavender Syrup

Amazon

This lavender syrup is the gateway lavender syrup for people who aren’t quite sure they want to drink flowers. It’s tasty, it’s sweet, it’s a little artificial, and it has floral notes, but they’re not overwhelming. (Honestly, it tastes more like berries than lavender.) Would you get the same effect from drinking a berry syrup next to a lavender plant? Maybe. But, fewer bees this way.

Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best Sugar Free Lavender Syrup

ChocZero Zero Sugar Lavender Syrup

Amazon

If you buy this, trust me when I tell you that it tastes better than it smells. The initial aroma when you open the bottle is plastic-y and artificially sickly sweet, but the flavor is much more mellow and about a million times more pleasant. It’s light on the lavender, but the floral flavor that is there is sophisticated. This is the best sugar free lavender syrup we tasted, but I do have to give an honorable mention to Syruvia, which ChocZero just edged out. ChocZero tastes a little bit brighter, leans a little more into the lavender, and feels a little less heavy in general.

Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

Le Lirop de Monin Lavender Syrup

Amazon

If Big Lavender had one chance to convince me that lavender is a good flavor, all they had to do was give me this syrup. It’s almost intimidatingly viscous in the bottle, so you know these guys aren’t playing around. It smells authentically floral, instead of like sugar, with grassy notes that take me to a bright summer day. What’s more, it maintains enough of that floral flavor to be just the right level of lavender without being soapy. It’s so delicate tasting that I’d be worried about baking it for fear of losing the flavor, but that’s an experiment for a different day. In the meantime, it’s definitely the best lavender syrup for coffee and I’ll happily drink it in all of my lattes.

Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Other lavender syrups we tried: 

Collins, Da Vinci, Barsmith, Syruvia