Simple syrup can be used for everything from sweetening coffee and cocktails to keeping cake layers moist, and brown simple syrup is also quite useful and just as easy to make. Both of these staples require nothing more than melting sugar with an equal amount of water on the stovetop, but they do taste different.

Plain simple syrup uses granulated white sugar, but the brown version uses brown sugar, which gives it a stronger flavor with notes of toffee and caramel. Molasses is present in brown sugar, but is removed from white sugar, which gives brown sugar syrup its deeper character, and you can even use different types of brown sugar.

Light brown sugar has about half the molasses as dark brown sugar, and both varieties can be used to make brown sugar simple syrup, so you can make a syrup that's just a little darker than usual or a very dark and rich one. Some cooks even flavor brown sugar syrup further by using cinnamon sticks, orange peels, and more.