Marie Brizard Advocaat

Appearance: Custard yellow. Aroma: Vanilla flavoured supermarket custard, made from custard powder. Flavour and Texture: Vanilla custard and neutral spirit. The texture is rich and thick. Marie Brizard is a large French manufacturer and importer of supermarket-quality liqueurs and syrups. This advocaat is not a very good one, sadly, but I have tasted worse. On the label it says that this product is actually made in Poland so I strongly suspect it is Polmos Slaska advocaat bottled under license. That brand uses vodka instead of brandy as the base spirit and I’m tasting that here for sure. Like all cheaper brands of advocaat there is an aroma and flavour very much like vanilla custard made from custard powder, or the sort of pre-made custard you get in cardboard packs from the supermarket dairy section. This is not unpleasant, in fact I rather like that sort of custard, however the better brands are like real home-made egg custard containing fresh ingredients. The texture is also a little thin and floury, and what body it has is coming from thickeners. This does contain real eggs, but they are powdered and not fresh which changes the texture considerably, so corn starch and other ingredients have to be added. We bought this on a whim on the weekend when Mrs Cascode saw it in the liquor store and had a sudden and irresistible craving for a Fluffy Duck. What the lady wants, the lady gets, but it was just barely adequate for the purpose. If you are looking for advocaat make sure it contains fresh egg yolks and vanilla in a brandy base - that's the real McCoy. Warninks and Bols are good brands that are not too hard to find. “Inferior” : 65/100 (1.5 stars)