Name: Amaretto Sour
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 60 ml Amaretto liqueur; 30 ml Lemon juice; 1 dash Aromatic bitters; 15 ml Egg white (pasteurised)

Amaretto Sour
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Photographed in an UB Grantown Tumbler 12oz

Ingredients:
2 oz	Disaronno amaretto
1 oz	Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
1 dash	Angostura Aromatic Bitters
¹⁄₂ oz	Egg white (pasteurised) or 3 dashes Fee Brothers Fee Foam cocktail foamer or Aquafaba (chickpea water) or Vegan egg white replacement

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill an Old-fashioned glass.
Prepare garnish of spray aromatic bitters over foaming cocktail from atomiser and then garnish with lemon & cherry sail (lemon slice & Luxardo Maraschino Cherry on stick).
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
STRAIN back into shaker.
DRY SHAKE (without ice).
FINE STRAIN into ice-filled glass.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Egg white (pasteurised) - Eggs

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Sweet 'n' sour - frothy with an almond buzz. An extra couple of dashes of bitters help balance the drink and add an extra burst of flavour. When made with freshly squeezed lemon juice this can be a great cocktail.

View readers' comments

Variant:

Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour with bourbon.

History:

Notably absent from 1970s encyclopaedia-style books listing pretty much all known cocktails of the day, including the comprehensive Stanley M. Jones' 1977 Jones' Complete Barguide, the Amaretto Sour is a cocktail of the 1980s, when it starts to appear in books such as Mark Torre's 1987 The Bartender's Cherry. (It may well also be in the 1984 first edition but sadly I don't own a copy.)

Amaretto Sour
1 shot Amaretto Di Saronno® /Amaretto
½ splash Orange Juice
Fill with Sour Mix
Shake
Orange Flag Garnish
Sour/Highball Glass
V/O: without Orange Juice
Mark Torre, 1987

The Amaretto Sour is thought to have been created in 1974 at the behest of the US importer of the brand then named "Amaretto di Saronno." Originally two parts amaretto liqueur to one part lemon juice, but (as the recipe in Jones' Complete Barguide illustrates) by the time it became popular in the 1980s the trend to use commercial sour-mix in place of fresh lemon juice had also taken its toll on the Amaretto Sour.

Hence, during the 1990-2000s cocktail renaissance, the Amaretto Sour was considered a "Disco Drink", only to be rescued by Jeffrey Morgenthaler in 2012 with the addition of bourbon: Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour
Sours cocktails history

Nutrition:

One serving of Amaretto Sour contains 233 calories

Alcohol content:

0.9 standard drinks
11.83% alc./vol. (11.83° proof)
12.5 grams of pure alcohol

More Citrusy cocktails
More Sours (citrus) cocktails

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Showing 10 of 11 comments for Amaretto Sour.
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Jose Cruz

6th May 2024 at 04:00

take 2 : 50ML Disaro. to 20 ml Lemon, not as sweet, still wonderful.

Jose Cruz

6th May 2024 at 03:47

I love sours ... not as they come but as i tune them for more balance .. for this one 50ML Disarorono / 20 ML lemon / 10 ML orgeat syrup.... yummy almond goodness

Jose Cruz

6th May 2024 at 03:53

WARNING: BASICALLY A DESSERT drink ;)

Dan Da Costa

26th November 2022 at 20:49

Had a version of this made for us by Miguel at Madrid's 1862 Dry Bar. He'd added Drambuie and Passion Fruit for an amazing sipper!!

Jesse M

19th July 2022 at 06:16

Made it vegan and somewhat merged this and the Morgenthaler recipe - 45ml amaretto, 5ml bourbon, 25ml lemon, 2.5ml rich brown syrup, 10ml aquafaba. Very nice and foamy, though the lemon was a bit forward and hours later I'm still feeling the acid in my trachea (is this just me? the recipe here calls for a full 30ml...). Hope to try again son with 40ml amaretto/10ml bourbon/15ml lemon/5ml syrup.

Nick Bull

22nd February 2022 at 20:14

Made this for my wife this evening. She loved it, and I was a bit jealous of her when I tried a sip. The sweetness of the Disaronno against the sharp lemon makes for a great drink. Don't be tempted to leave out the egg white, it really makes for a great texture and mouthfeel.

Dommie coolvax

25th June 2021 at 17:53

What a fantastic site this is, just tried this as the first sour I’ve ever made it was delicious ? as a newbie to the cocktail world I couldn’t bring myself to add the egg am I missing out ?

Simon Difford

25th June 2021 at 18:26

Thanks for your kind words. Yes! Egg white smooths and adds mouthfeel. Look for a pasteurised egg white such as the one we sell, or Two Chicks in supermarket fridges, usually near cream.

Jeff Newcastle

24th April 2021 at 16:17

The Richard Goodwin book makes this with 50% bourbon and 50% amaretto, Lemon juice, angostura, egg white and an optional 5ml of simple syrup. It’s delicious. Drop the angostura on the foam as a part of the garnish.

Simon Difford

25th April 2021 at 09:54

Richard Goodwin recipe is actually from Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s recipe (please follow link above).

乐意的homebar 赵

18th January 2021 at 05:31

It is good taste cocktail.The disarono is too sweet to me, but i like the almond flavor. The almond sour deal the problem of high sweetness.

Nick Lee

15th December 2020 at 16:12

To Christopher Bellingham; quite simply, yes Disaronno is an amaretto. Amaretto does not pertain to almond or apricot kernel, it just means a little bitter.

Vincent Dufour

25th August 2020 at 19:24

What the difference between Giffard amaretto and disaronno amaretto ? apart from the price ?

Simon Difford

26th October 2020 at 13:18

As per Cointreau and triple-sec, Disaronno dropping amaretto from their label was purely their own marketing decision. It helps them stand out as being a unique liqueur rather than just another amaretto.

Christopher Bellingham

26th October 2020 at 12:58

Hi Simon,
Love your work!

I had read that there was a labelling issue with Disaronno that was brought up in the late Nineties/early Noughties, something to do with them not using almond extract in their production process. So they had to rebrand, hence the 'amaretto-flavoured' description rather than just calling it an amaretto. I know you do a lot of work with Disaronno so could you clarify this please.

Thanks =)