Comet Syrups Are Punchy, Botanical-Infused Cocktail Starters (and Equally at Home in Slushies and Ice-Cream)

Pita Dixon has been making syrups for a decade, both at home and in bars as a beverage manager. With his new Comet syrups, he’s still trying to split the difference. “I’m trying to make sure everybody’s comfortable reaching for them, whether that’s a professional bartender or somebody at home, or maybe [they’re] even a syrup for your kids,” Dixon says.

To couch them somewhere between humble cordials and upscale cocktail syrups, Dixon’s recipes all feature punchy base flavours subtly heightened with interesting botanicals. The result is flavour combos like raspberry and lemon myrtle, hibiscus and lemongrass, grapefruit and quandong, and lemon, lime and makrut lime.

To bring the syrups out of the home kitchen and into production, Dixon has had to massage a few of the techniques (he’s no longer making them by hand, for example), but he’s not taking any shortcuts. Raspberries are steeped in sugar for three days (a process called “oleo saccharum”), lemon and lime are clarified by a process of freezing and slow defrosting, while hibiscus is macerated for 10 days for full extraction. Time-consuming though it is, Dixon is set on getting the best flavour from each ingredient.

“I found with the grapefruit, for some reason in my mind I had that it was quite bitter, but it’s actually quite a sweet fruit and I had to macerate that with the skin for seven days to get that bitter backbone that you’d expect from it,” Dixon says.

Given Dixon’s bar background, Comet syrups are naturally well-suited to cocktails. Grapefruit and quandong lends itself to a Paloma, for example – just muddle a few lime wedges, add tequila, the syrup and soda and you’re good to go. Beyond that, Dixon has added Comet to jelly, jelly shots, icy poles, slushies and even a raspberry ripple ice-cream made in collaboration with Kenny Lover. Ultimately, Dixon reckons Comet works best wherever you might like to try it.

“I like to think about it more as an ingredient than a syrup,” Dixon says. “I wouldn’t use Cottees or Bickfords in a cocktail, but I might mix it with water or soda water, but then if you go to some of the high-end cocktail syrups, I wouldn’t really be mixing that in an ice-cream, slushie or inside water. We sort of straddle both ends of that.”

Comet syrups are available at specialty food stores around Australia.

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