Rating: 12/23 Whoa, that's a tall cap! I thought it was two separate pieces. You know, from a distance, this looks like a classy liqueur, but up close it really doesn't look like anything to write home about. Then again, Cointreau looks pretty unimpressive and so does Chartreuse, so I won't be judging it based on that. I hear that this is good and the go-to raspberry liqueur, but I'm not sure what good as a raspberry liqueur means. It's difficult because for non-liqueur-spirits, I often find the "as a mixer" ones to be a level above "don't drink this" (to be fair and in my defense, being not-quite-sippable and being a cheap drink that works well for mixing are NOT the same thing - mixing usually requires punchy flavors that are well executed and add interesting character, so I am not saying that mixers and cheap spirits are the same thing). Liqueurs are not my forte though. The big problem though is that I have no idea what most people do with raspberry liqueur. What I'm getting at here is that I first bought a raspberry liqueur so that I could make some raspberry buttercream chocolates as a Christmas present for my mom. If you're envisioning this scene with a mix of blurry, over-saturated pastel colors and sparkles without bubbles, you've nailed it. So, I really don't think of this as something that one would sit down and drink, particularly since I usually think of baking/confectionary liquor as cheap (seriously, if you see a recipe asking liquor in cups, how much are you prepared to drop on it?). This kind of lands me in this conundrum (a conundrum now being something that one "lands" in) of trying to rate something that is meant for mixing things I don't know and maybe baking/confections when I'm most accustomed to rating liquors that are meant for sipping slowly and savoring. Maybe this makes a kick-ass cocktail X? Maybe it isn't the right choice for cocktail Y? What does that mean. I was baffled the first time I saw a recipe that said 'this sauce is bad on its own, but it's good with the pork'. Does that mean I give this full marks for being awesome in X or do I give it a middling score for being acceptable in Y? With most drams, I just go with the premise that it's being sipped on a clean but experienced palate. With liqueurs and some spirits that are especially effective mixers, I try to take them in their better of their sipping and mixing identities. But, here, I don't even understand the mixing identity! N: The only other framboise I have on my shelf at this time is Chateau Monet, which a neighbor gave me when she moved out because she couldn't afford to pay the bills for her cancer medication anymore. In all seriousness, that got depressing fast, but I feel like she deserves to be remembered a bit, whether or not she made it through that relapse. So, Chareau Monet is a no-name liqueur that I had trouble finding a price for until recently. It's also bottled at a lower ABV. In comparison, the nose...wait, am I just starting to talk about the nose? Let me do the review equivalent of breaking the fourth wall and start the nose section over again. N: Chateau Monet has a much sweeter nose that suggests raspberry and strawberry gummy candies. Actually, Welch's strawberry fruit snacks. In contrast, Chambord is more bitter and rich. The difference is actually shocking. I get a lot more of that raspberry seed smell that borders on pomegranate. I'm not actually sure whether that's a good thing or whether I'm just so accustomed to it from drinking red wine that I say "oh, yeah, this" and accept it as natural. There's also a malted note with a little bit of chocolate in it. Somehow, even on multiple independent sniffs, this reminds me every time of those egg-shaped malted milk balls that are available around Easter and not of regular old Whoppers all that much. This is a more complex nose and I must say that I like it more. P: This is not what I expected. It's thinner than expected and the malted Easter egg candies come out much more, including a substantial amount of milk chocolate. The raspberry flavor is there, with its seed's oiliness being the largest component, but it falls to the back a bit. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how much it actually tastes like raspberry and I did just mark down some coffee liqueurs for tasting like chocolate rather than coffee. Malted milk and chocolate instead of raspberry seems far less reasonable. Some mushrooms gradually come out. F: Sweet, some icing sugar, a bit of malted milk remnants with just that thin coating of chocolate after you've gnawed or sucked the rest off. The faintest suggestion of raspberry, led by oily seed and accompanied by a vague floral hint of apricot. Somehow, the finish gets sweeter. Wafts of mushroom occasionally remain. This is an OK finish, but I'm not a fan. I'm actually really disappointed in Chambord. I expected great things, but this aging bottle of Chateau Monet tastes more like raspberry to me. In a final quick SBS tasting, this is sweeter yet thinner. It has a longer-lasting bitterness, but the maltiness really carries through. Chateau Monet shouts "fruit!", whereas this kind of dithers. I would absolutely pull this out at Christmas, but otherwise I would probably prefer Chateau Monet, honestly. As I strongly suggested earlier, there may be some bias here, but I honestly don't know which way it goes. Sure, I'd like to think that my former neighbor is OK, but she never struck me as someone with a refined palate, and Chateau Monet's bottle seems like it's trying to rip off Chambord, Crown Royal, and maybe Godiva all at once. Still, these two are the same proof and Chateau Monet is cheaper, so next time I run low on (non-baking/confection) framboise, I'll probably check for a bottle of Chateau Monet. Frankly though, neither is a very good liqueur. A dash here or there, sure, but if I want a real flavoring, I'll reach for something with more personality like Chartreuse Green or Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao instead. I have tried a few of cocktails using this, but none of them impressed me. After that, I felt like I was getting into "X cocktail but with Chambord!" territory, so I stopped looking. There was only one that was more than maybe slightly better than Chambord alone (see next paragraph). Aside from literally mixing with chocolate (and I did try this with chocolate liqueur), I didn't find any cocktail that I felt was a compelling use for raspberry-blackberry-plus-malted-milk-ball liqueur. Now, in Chambord's defense, mixing it with imitation chocolate liqueur was better than either of them was alone. It wasn't anything amazing, but it seemed decent for dessert. Do I really see this being a common drink that I or anybody else would want to have though? No, not really. It's kind of fun, but it gets tiresome easily. I did also compare the chocolate-framboise cocktail with a version with Chateau Monet. I found that it took a lot less chocolate liqueur to create a balanced flavor with Chambord than with Chateau Monet. Chambord produced a more subdued, but somewhat more complex drink with flavors of chocolate, malt, raspberry, and blackberry. Essentially, the chocolate liqueur explained away the weird malted milk ball flavor inherently in Chambord. On a total tangent, I read recently that the Bailey's prototype included some sort of sort of Swiss-Miss-style malted milk chocolate or something. Having tasted this, I'm glad that I can't taste that in modern Bailey's. Back to the topic at hand, Chateau Monet had a more clear raspberry flavor in the cocktail, but it also had more aggressive sweetness, including confectioner's sugar. If I were looking for a real chocolate-raspberry experience, I would still definitely choose Chateau Monet, assuming I could put up with the confectioner's sugar (in that regard, Chateau Monet is unfortunately in a similar conundrum to Kahlua). The thing is that at best here, I only mildly prefer the Chambord version. And, in general, Chambord is weird and without purpose. Adding vodka, the Chambord cocktail shows more of the true Chambord character. The thing is that I can see how somebody would like this cocktail when told that it's raspberry plus chocolate (assuming that they could put the blackberry and malt aside) because it's pretty well balanced and so one. I know how the sausage is made though, so I can't appreciate it in that way. The Chateau Monet cocktail with vodka, on the other hand, really needs a fair amount of vodka to bring the sweetness and viscosity down. The vodka really does end up showing and while it does truly taste more like a chocolate raspberry cocktail (and the confectioner's sugar is even reduced), I can see how its more aggressive flavors would put some people off. I'd call it pretty much a toss-up between the two if I didn't know what was going on in the Chambord one, but I would lean in favor of the Chambord one if I didn't know that because of the total lack of confectioner's sugar. I think even knowing that, I do slightly prefer the Chambord cocktail, but the cocktail itself is at best a 14. It kind of gives me this camping food vibe of jelly sandwiches and s'mores. Weird. I did give the cocktail a try with real chocolate liqueur, but I was unsurprised when the the resulting texture was gorilla snot. It did taste pretty good though! Not enough to make me want to drink gorilla snot, however. So the high bar for anything I was able to do with Chambord is a 14. It isn't actively offensive and it's kind of amusing, so I can't see it being below a 10. I might give its one successful cocktail a high 13. So the liqueur itself is at best a 12. I will give it a gentleman's C of 12 and kindly ask that it not darken my doorstep again. Adieu. (Note: most of my bottle is still full, so unless I can pawn this off, it will most certainly continue to darken my doorstep)