cascode
St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
Floral Liqueurs — France
Reviewed
November 10, 2020 (edited April 17, 2022)
Appearance: Pale straw.
Aroma: Lychee syrup with suggestions of peach liqueur, citrus peel, jasmine and muscat grape juice.
Palate: Intense but crisp sweetness based around lychees, honey-water and elderflower. The sweetness is balanced by elegant acidic notes led by grapefruit and a touch of sweet lemon. There is a light spice touch like lemon and ginger tea and the overall sweet character is more akin to honeysuckle nectar than sugar syrup. The texture is viscous but avoids being cloying on the finish.
Finish: Medium/long. Lychee, peach, gooseberry and grapefruit.
The nose on this is comparatively simple and very direct. I have a suspicion that all the subtle sweet notes I found are merely different characteristics of elderflower. The palate is crisp, commanding and straightforward with a character like an acidic, fruity young white wine.
Complex liqueurs such as Benedictine and Chartreuse were originally created for neat consumption, either as tonics or for pleasure, although most if not all such liqueurs have now found their way into mixed drinks. In contrast, I'd classify this elderflower liqueur with other tightly focused liqueurs like triple sec and maraschino that were designed specifically as cocktail ingredients to add one sharply defined spice note in cocktails.
This can be enjoyed as a neat liqueur but if you are taking it that way I highly recommend serving it chilled straight from the fridge, or even freezer. This highlights its crispness and counterbalances the sweetness.
I also love the very cool art moderne bottle and it's almost tempting to give it another quarter-point just for that.
"Very Good" : 87/100 (4.25 stars)
73.0
AUD
per
Bottle
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This is definitely a bottle you can keep stocked for decoration alone. If "flower" was an elemental spirit, this would be its avatar.
Those are great ideas @cascode ! I'm particularly interested to try combining this with amaro/bitters - that hadn't occurred to me at all!
@ContemplativeFox My first thought was a spritz - balance the sweetness with dry sparkling wine and give it length with soda. My next thought was to add just a bar-spoon or two to a G&T, with perhaps a dash of bitters. After that it occurred that you could try substituting this into any cocktail that uses either simple syrup or agave syrup, so effectively it becomes a sweet spice that adds a distinctive presence. Alternately you could balance the sweetness with a bittre amaro, particularly one of the alpine one like Braulio that contains a herbal presence.
I'll be interested to hear what cocktail suggestions you have for this :) I love it, but I sure wouldn't drink it neat either. I mainly use it with gin and a splash of soda.