Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette

Aromas are grape kool-aid. There is violets on the nose. But no on the tongue. Flavors are pure sugar cane and cotton candy. So dang sweet.

Floral nose. Sweet, floral, and delicate.

The nose is very floral and slightly spicy with a hint of cane sugar. The flavor is very floral with a hint of grape and spice. A large amount of sugar is present in this liquor, and it has a syrupy mouthfeel. The liquor finishes with a violet candy flavor. Overall, this is pretty unique for liquor. It is a great addition to an aviation cocktail as it sweetens without adding simple syrup to the cocktail.

Mainly purchased so that I could try making Aviations and Blue Moons. I love the Zirbenz Stone Pine liqueur, so I went with this Austrian alpine creme de violette. Neat, the liqueur packs plenty of violet flavor, but it’s a bit too sugary and syrupy. I’m still working out my preferred proportion of lemon juice to violet (most recipes call for too much lemon for my taste), but this adds a delightful floral character and can eliminate the need for a simple syrup. I probably won’t keep it always on stock, but very nice to have around.

It ends a bit too sweet for me, unsurprisingly. However, it is nice when cut with club soda. The carbination highlights the floral notes nicely.

I have been playing around with classic cocktails and several drinks called for a "Creme de Violette" liqueur and this had a cooler bottle than the other one at my local liquor store. The liquid inside is a has a light floral scent that is also on the sweet side. I will get to the drinks in a little bit as I did try this by itself and it was not terrible. Neat it is very floral and syrupy sweet it smooths out with ice or water but I did not like it very much. I did add a few ounces of milk to some and the drink was not too bad, kind of like an adult purple cow with flowers. I have used it primarily to make the Aviation and Blue Moon cocktails and the difference this makes is wonderful. The Aviation can be made with or without but I greatly prefer it with the Creme de Violette. This is a very niche liqueur and it will probably take me a year or more to use the bottle but it is excellent at what it does and as long as I have space in my bar and I am making classic old cocktails then I will have this at home.

The Cognac base gives it a little bit more complexity than other creme de violettes I have tasted.