Liqueur Basics

Liqueurs, also called cordials, are sweetened, distilled alcohol flavored with herbs, spices, fruits, nuts, or other plant material, either singly or in combination. Though all liqueurs can be enjoyed neat (straight) or over ice, they are just as often used to enhance cocktails or coffee. When served neat, liqueurs should be at room temperature and poured into a small liqueur glass. Unlike shots, liqueurs should be sipped, not gulped, and their flavor and aroma should be savored.

In the Middle Ages, a belief that nectars made from herbs and spices could prevent illness and restore health led monks and others to infuse plant matter into water and liquor. Over the following centuries, liqueurs evolved from these medicinal spirits. In 1510, Benedictine monks at the abbey of Fecamp, in Normandy, began to infuse sweetened cognac with 27 herbs and spices, creating Bénédictine. Three decades later, Catherine de Medici helped popularize what would come to be called liqueurs after her marriage to King Henry II of France. By the end of the 16th century, the Italians, Germans, and Dutch were producing and marketing herb-based liqueurs; the Bols company, for example, was founded in Amster-dam in 1575.

In the 18th century, the French royal court had a particular fondness for liqueurs, spurring producers such as Parisian Marie Brizard to experiment with using fruit and herbs to flavor liqueurs. DeKuyper (Holland), Cointreau (France), Drambuie (Scotland), and other companies arrived on the scene and produced liqueurs that have changed little, if at all, to this day. The Victorian Age gave liqueurs another boost, but the real explosion of interest came in the early 1970s, when liqueurs found new life as an ingredient in cocktails, spurring a boom that shows no signs of slowing.

Liqueurs are almost always made in one of two ways:

Most liqueurs are “rested” rather than aged, stored in containers only until their flavors are well integrated, or “married.”