Liqueur
A liqueur is a type of spirit that has been sweetened and flavored with herbs, roots, plants, flowers, fruits, dairy products, honey, spices or beans. The category encompasses products like fruit brandies, cream liqueurs, coffee liqueurs, absinthe and bitter liqueurs and amari. Liqueurs are often enjoyed after a meal as a digestif or as an aperitif, or mixed into cocktails.
Liqueurs date back six hundred years, when they were made in Italy and other countries in Europe (often by monks) to combat digestive problems and other ailments. Bitter ingredients made with bitter barks, roots, seeds and plants, which are the present-day amari, are still drunk after a meal to aid digestion.
Four methods exist for flavoring a liqueur. The processes have not really changed for the last four hundred years:
Compounding adds a mixture of sugar, water and flavorings added to the base spirit.
Maceration involves steeping ingredients into the alcohol for weeks or even months, which coaxes out full flavors from ingredients, especially bitter ones like barks and roots.
Percolation uses ingredients placed inside a still that flavor the spirit as it passes through a screen or net.
Infusion steeps a liquid with fruit and/or herbs before distillation, resulting in a lightly flavored liqueur.
WHAT ARE LIQUEURS & BRANDY?
Brandy
Brandy is an unsweetened spirit that’s made by fermenting and then distilling fresh juice. Its name comes from the Dutch word “brandewijn,” or “burned wine” and it is made all over the world, either unaged and colored with caramel before bottling, or aged in wooden casks. The brandy category encompasses high-end historical brandies including Cognac, Armagnac and Spanish brandy, as well as pisco from Peru and Chile, and grappa or marc, a highly spirited brandy made from the pomace (or skins) of the grapes. Brandy is generally enjoyed after a meal, but it can also be sipped in cocktails like the Sidecar and Pisco Punch.
Brandy was initially created for two reasons. Compared to wine, it was more stable to transport and less prone to oxidation, and the taxes paid on brandy were less than wine as the liquid’s volume was reduced during distillation. The intention was to add the water back into the brandy before drinking it, but people soon discovered that distillation and aging in barrels added complex aromas and flavors. Brandy tasted nothing like the wine from which it was produced, but it was interesting and delicious on its own right. Significant brandy production began in the fifteenth century.
Traditional brandy is made from a number of grape varietals that are picked early so they have high acid and low sugar levels, and fermented into wine. After fermentation, brandy is distilled either in a pot still, alembic still or continuous still, and may be aged in oak barrels for a number of months or years.
Styles​
Brandy styles vary, from unaged Pisco used for cocktails to well-matured, highly complex XO Champagne Cognac. Here are the most popular offerings around the world:
