Liqueurs of the apothecary shelf

Behind every classic cocktail stands a sweet, secretive bottle that was never the point and always the difference. The Sidecar is cognac and lemon until the orange liqueur arrives; the Singapore Sling is a gin drink until the cherry and the herbal liqueur turn it rose. These are the apothecary bottles, and most of them really did begin as remedies.

What a liqueur is

In the United States a cordial or liqueur is a flavored spirit made by mixing or redistilling spirits with fruits, flowers, plants or juices, carrying at least 2.5 percent sugar by weight; triple sec and curacao are listed as orange-flavored types, and the word dry is permitted below 10 percent sugar. The European Union sets a higher sugar floor, 100 grams per liter at 15 percent or more, with an exception of 70 grams for cherry liqueurs made entirely from cherry spirit. The definitions are loose on purpose: the category runs from cream liqueurs barely stronger than a fortified wine to herbal elixirs stronger than most gin.

How they are made

Three methods, often combined. Maceration steeps fruit or botanicals in spirit and sweetens the result. Distillation redistils spirit over the botanicals, which gives clarity and lifts the aromatic oils; the orange liqueurs and maraschino are built this way. Percolation drips spirit through the botanicals like coffee. Many herbal liqueurs then rest in oak, and a few, Chartreuse famously, keep changing in the bottle.

The herbal liqueurs

Benedictine comes from Fecamp on the Normandy coast. The house tells its story as a chain of hands: an abbey founded in 1001, a monk's elixir in 1510, the abbey closed by the Revolution in 1792, the manuscript passed to a local family, and Alexandre Le Grand recreating the recipe in 1863 and launching the liqueur in 1864. A new distillery followed in 1888 and the ornate Palais that houses it opened as a museum in 1900. The documented part begins with Le Grand; the earlier chapters are the brand's heritage account, and we present them as that. The liqueur uses twenty-seven plants and spices, tastes of honey, saffron and warm spice, and is the quiet partner in the Singapore Sling, the Vieux Carre and the Bobby Burns.

Chartreuse is made by the Carthusian order in the mountains above Grenoble. The order's account: a manuscript given to it in 1605, more than a century of work, the Elixir Vegetal fixed in 1764, and the table liqueurs, Green and Yellow, following in the nineteenth century. Green is the strong, intensely herbal, faintly minty original; Yellow is lower in alcohol, softer and honeyed. The company is based at Voiron, and the liqueurs develop in bottle for years. Green Chartreuse is the key to the Last Word and the Bijou; Yellow makes the Alaska and softens a Champs-Elysees.

The orange liqueurs

Curacao is the old name, taken by tradition from the Caribbean island whose bitter oranges flavored the first Dutch versions; a dry curacao today is an orange liqueur on a brandy base with a little sweetness and weight. Triple sec is the French dry style on neutral spirit, named for a triple distillation of the peels or for its dryness, depending on who tells it. Cointreau is the triple sec that became the reference, clear and dry, and the house's own showcase drink is the Margarita. Grand Marnier style liqueurs blend cognac with orange and sit between curacao and triple sec. The rule for the bar: a Sidecar and a Margarita want a dry, high-proof orange liqueur; a Mai Tai wants the rounder weight of a curacao.

Cherries, marasca and the north

Maraschino is not the syrup in the jar. It is a clear liqueur distilled from the marasca sour cherry and aged in ash wood, in a bottle traditionally wrapped in straw. The Luxardo family began making it in Zara on the Dalmatian coast in 1821 and rebuilt the business at Torreglia near Padua in 1947. It is dry, nutty and floral, and a quarter ounce transforms the Aviation, the Hemingway Daiquiri and the Last Word. Cherry Heering, made in Copenhagen since 1818, is the other cherry: dark, spiced, sweeter, the color and the blush in the Singapore Sling and the Blood and Sand. The two are not interchangeable.

Coffee and the rest of the shelf

Coffee liqueur is brewed or extracted coffee sweetened and fortified, often on a rum or cane base; it makes the Espresso Martini and the White Russian and benefits from a brand that names its coffee. Pear liqueur, built on Williams pear eau-de-vie or by maceration, is the orchard note in several house concepts. Creme de liqueurs, cassis, menthe, cacao, are named for their dominant flavor and carry the most sugar on the shelf.

In cocktails

The Singapore Sling uses two of these bottles at once, Cherry Heering for color and fruit and Benedictine for its herbal warmth, under gin, pineapple and lime. The Sidecar is cognac, orange liqueur and lemon, and the liqueur supplies both sweetness and the orange oils that make the drink smell like more than sour brandy. The Margarita does the same with tequila and lime, which is why a dry triple sec rather than a sweet one is correct. The Last Word stands Green Chartreuse and maraschino against gin and lime in equal parts, and it is the clearest demonstration of what two liqueurs can do to each other.

Buying by style

One dry orange liqueur at 40 percent covers the sours; a curacao is the second bottle if you make tiki. One maraschino, one cherry liqueur, one Green Chartreuse, one Benedictine, and the classic canon is open. Coffee liqueur should be bought fresh and finished within the year. Herbal liqueurs keep for years; fruit liqueurs fade. Read for the base spirit and the sugar; a liqueur that names neither is sugar and flavoring.

Folklore and fact

The monastery stories are history told by the houses that own them, and we have kept them in that register: a manuscript, a monk, a family, a factory. What the records support is the nineteenth century, when Le Grand, the Carthusians, the Luxardos and the Heerings built companies around recipes they may or may not have inherited. The liqueurs are no less good for the uncertainty.

Sources

• 27 CFR 5.150, Cordials and liqueurs (Cornell LII); Regulation (EU) 2019/787, Annex I category 33 (EUR-Lex).
• Chartreuse, brand site; Benedictine, "Heritage" and Palais pages.
• Difford's Guide, "Maraschino liqueur"; Luxardo, "History" and "Luxardo from 1947 to the present day"; Heering, brand site; Cointreau, brand site.