Liqueurs

ISC judge and distiller Patrick van Zuidam looks at how liqueurs will be flavouring the next decade

Once upon a time liqueurs were nothing less than medicinal tonics invented by monks trying to cure the sick. They combined alcoholic extracts from medicinal herbs and spices, sweetened with honey.

These drinks evolved into the beautiful liqueurs such as Benedictine and Chartreuse that we still enjoy today. Later these were joined by other products created solely for the enjoyment they provided – liqueurs distilled from fresh citrus fruit or extracted from juicy berry fruit to capture the flavour of summer all year round.

From the 80s things went downhill and, for a long time now, the liqueur market has been dominated by cheap, sticky, sweet, artificially flavoured liqueurs. Look at the shelves of your local retailer and you can identify them easily.

This abundance of mediocre or outright poor products has most likely caused some of the more sophisticated consumers to turn their backs on the product group.

Now, with the new worldwide appreciation of genuine products throughout the food sector, you see the rise of quality oriented producers for all kinds of foodstuff. There is a lot of attention for all kinds of products with real heritage – products that are honest, handmade (preferably even local).

This holds true for spirits as well and specially for liqueurs. Artisanal liqueur producers are doing brisk business as consumers and bartenders alike flock back to real products with real flavours.

For a long time liqueurs were the ugly duckling of the spirits industry. It didn’t always used to be like this. At the turn of the century (no, not the last one, the one before), in the high days of cocktails, liqueurs were hip and highly valued.

With the revival of cocktails and the renewed interest in genuine products those days are about to return. You can see it all around when you pay attention. Premium liqueurs are growing everywhere, with new flavours being created all the time. The cheap stuff is being pushed back where it belongs, to the bottom shelves.

Consumers are getting more and more educated and they want to know the details of how products are made. Bartenders are the most eager to learn and are, as usual, at the forefront of the quest for knowledge. It sometimes amazes me how detailed their thirst for knowledge is. They are rediscovering the true tastes of cocktails of the past and creating new drinks based on those flavours. Liqueurs are an inherent part of the past and will be part of the future of cocktails.

Then why is everybody so in love with all these new-fashioned, artificially flavoured vodka’s? As usual the trend has blown in from the United States. But I sometimes wonder if anybody ever took the time to taste these vodkas that are being used to flavour our cocktails. We are being swamped by raspberry vodkas that have never seen a raspberry up close. Vanilla vodkas that have nothing in common with vanilla. Orange vodkas that don’t taste like oranges, and the list goes on and on.

A good raspberry liqueur will do the job, giving your cocktail a fresh and vibrant raspberry touch. It might surprise you to learn that the truly great raspberry liqueurs are still made from raspberries and nothing else.

Producers such as Merlet, Vedrenne (and Zuidam of course) still produce brilliant liqueurs made solely from real fruit. Distilleries such as Grand Marnier and Cointreau have been making perfect orange liqueurs for centuries. Even the drinks giants provide us with high quality liqueurs, such as the super coffee liqueurs Tia Maria and Kaluha.

So get wise and rid your drinks cabinet and back bar of the artificial garbage that has been flavouring our drinks for the past few years. Go back to using honest and well-made products in your cocktails and long drinks.

Future trends

The trends in liqueurs sometimes follow other trends. In this way the worldwide attention in whisky/bourbon and rum has sparked a whole range of new liqueurs.

Products combining whisky with herbs and spices are probably as old as whisky itself. The renewed interest in whisky and bourbon, however, has already led to a lot of new products, and believe me when I tell you that a lot more will follow.

Some of these products are really traditional, such as the new Drambuie 15 year old, which I personally think is one of the best liqueurs I ever tasted.

Others are really exciting and new, combining whisky, Irish whiskey or, in a lot of cases, bourbon with other flavours such as cherry or honey. As usual some of these combinations turn out better than others. In the long run the best combinations will survive and prove durable products. Hopefully the new Drambuie 15 year old will be among those that will catch the imagination of the consumers.

Rum has always proven a really good base for liqueurs and the latest rum revival will spark a lot of new products as well. There have always been good old Malibu and the Santa Teresa Rhum Orange but lately they have had company from new products combining the rum with the luscious flavour of caramel or spices such as cinnamon and vanilla.

The future looks bright for liqueurs so now it’s up to us, the distillers, to create the liqueurs that will flavour our drinks in the next decade.