Needless to say, cocktails come in all shapes in sizes. Whether your preference lies in the tried-and-true Margarita, the bitter Negroni or the opulently sweet Pornstar Martini, there always exists a spirit that defines the recipe in the history books. But tequila and vodka don't make the world go round. Behind the curtain and just outside the spotlight, you'll often find an equally delicious liqueur, varieties of which exist in literally every flavor imaginable.
Sorting through the rainbow assortment of liqueurs available on liquor store shelves, we've put together a list of eight that should please every kind of cocktail lover in 2024.
We'll spare the usual suspects. If you've ever made a cocktail at home, there's a high likelihood you're already stocking a cream liqueur and triple sec somewhere in your bar cart. Perhaps a bottle of Campari or Aperol if you're keeping up with the times. You don't need us to tell you that the regular stuff is worth a buy, even if it absolutely is.
Instead, we'll focus on unconventional flavors, paying special attention to liqueurs that can pull double-duty as mixology staples and quality solo sippers. None will cost you any more than $50.
Without further ado:
Thanks in large part to the trending popularity of espresso martinis, coffee liqueurs are a dime a dozen these days. At the front of the pack, you'll find Kahlúa (the old favorite), Mr. Black (the fashionable upstart) and a laundry list of tequila-coffee hybrids like Patrón XO Cafe (not our drink of choice, though results may vary).
For our money, none holds a candle to Grand Brulot. Produced by the Tardy family in France, each bottle contains 51% VSOP cognac aged four to five years mixed with 49% Ecuadorian Robusta coffee. If that sounds like a heap more coffee than usual, you'd be right — each serving of the liqueur delivers the same caffeine content as one shot of espresso. Vodka Red Bull be damned. Grand Brulot is aged an additional six months after blending and bottled at 40% ABV, toning down the syrupy mouthfeel of many a liqueur in favor of an oaked, spirit-forward edge.
Aromas of cocoa, marzipan, peanuts and stonefruit underly a wallop of coffee bean, giving you a general idea of what the expect on the palate. The star of the show, and the mark of distinction from rival coffee liqueurs, is the cognac foundation, which teases out hints of raisin and sweet toffee right at home within a mochaccino. Milk chocolate and vanilla round out the finish with a sweet nudge. It tastes like the kind of hair-brained experiment you might mix up at home after a few too many drinks, loaded with oddly satisfying complexity and plenty of booze.
Best of all, Grand Brulot costs only $35 — cheap enough for a coffee liqueur and an absolute steal for a cognac.
For the perfect spicy margarita mixer, look no further than Ancho Reyes. The liqueur begins with late-harvest poblano peppers picked in Puebla City, Mexico, where they undergo a three-week sun-drying process that transforms them into crispy ancho chilies. The ingredient is a staple of Mexican dishes like mole, salsa and adobo, cherished for its roasty chocolate flavor and piquant bite. Inside a liqueur, it's everything you'd want and then some.
The nose opens with darkened aromas of cinnamon, raisins and fennel. Drinkhacker's Christopher Null likened the aroma to a bitter digestif like amaro, and we're inclined to agree. The palate gives way to vanilla, tons of dark chocolate and a Scoville-worthy kick. The spice level is more in line with a jalapeño or habanero than the relatively tame poblano, lingering at the back of the throat as its honeyed heat lingers long after the first sip. It's an experience that works well over the rocks, once again much like a digestif.
Brand owner Campari has expanded upon the concept with a pair of twists that also merit shoutout. Ancho Reyes Verde trades out the chili drying process in favor of fire-roasting, bringing a vegetal punch that's a smidge closer to something like Green Chartreuse. If your budget allows, there's also a recently introduced Barrica expression that spends two years in ex-bourbon American oak barrels. The majority of the casks used formerly held Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey or Buffalo Trace bourbon, a nice touch that goes to explain Barrica's nearly $70 price tag.
If you're opting for the classic, a bottle of Ancho Reyes Liqueur will run around $38.
If you look at the ingredient list of your favorite liqueur, chances are you'll find some combination of flavors added to a base of either brandy, whiskey or cane spirit. Perhaps gin if you're a fan of British staples like Pimm's No.1 Cup. Tequila, despite its widespread use in cocktails, is a rare sight, one that challenges brands to combine a subdued vegetal palate with a sweet and viscous mouthfeel. After trying a handful of these, we'd be hard-pressed to recommend any beyond pure novelty value.
So imagine our surprise when we came across Del Maguey Crema de Mezcal. Its colorful package contains a mix of Espadin — specifically, Del Maguey's San Luis Del Rio expression — combined with unfermented syrup of roasted agave. Production is overseen in the heart of mezcal country in Oaxaca, where distillers Paciano Cruz Nolasco and Marcos Cruz Mendez opted to bottle this at a welcomely high 40% ABV. Perhaps most intriguing of all is the brand name. Del Maguey, a ubiquitous sight in the American agave spirits scene, rarely markets this product alongside its flagship portfolio, and though Crema de Mezcal is widely available online, you'd struggle to find it at your local liquor store.
It's a shame because this is fascinatingly delicious stuff. Trademark mezcal flavors of smoke, clay, earth and agave combine with a syrupy mouthfeel that veers into confectioners' sugar territory in all the right ways. It shouldn't work, but by god, it does. Were we to recommend a use, we'd argue this is the perfect way to lure mezcal skeptics over to the green side. For an after-dinner treat, Del Maguey recommends it drizzled over fruits and pastries like mango or pan dulce.
Del Maguey Crema de Mezcal can be picked up on most virtual marketplaces around $32.
More often than not, liqueurs rise and fall in line with the popularity of their signature cocktail. The star power of the Aperol Spritz single-handedly catapulted its namesake aperitif back into the spotlight, while the Espresso Martini has ushered in a wave of coffee liqueurs now selling like hotcakes off the shelf.
Chambord, a raspberry liqueur modeled after a French 1600s-era recipe, had to wait until the summer of this year for its true breakout moment. Anyone who tuned in to the 2024 U.S. Open will recall the Honey Deuce, a simple mix of Grey Goose, lemonade and raspberry liqueur that took over the stands like a boozy pink tsunami. Myriad celebrities, influencers and athletes jumped on the trend, propelling sales of the scene-stealing cocktail to over $12.8 million — the highest ever in U.S. Open history. That each cocktail cost $23 a serving probably helped inflate the number.
If you're hoping to recreate the recipe on a budget or stir up an equally delicious berry drink, Chambord is the way to go. The 16.5%-ABV liqueur is made from an indulgent blend of raspberries and blackberries, Madagascar vanilla, citrus peel, honey and X.O cognac. The end result is dessert in a glass, trading out the saccharine sweetness of rival fruit liqueurs in favor of a dense jammy flavor not unlike a freshly baked pie. A toothsome mouthfeel gives way to stewed fruits, spice and a hint of oak credited to the inclusion of cognac.
700-milliliter bottles of Chambord clock in around $40. For festive occasions, we recommend the New Year's Eve-themed "Night Out" and "Night In" kits, which each cost just $18.49 and pair a 375-milliliter bottle of Chambord with a nice assortment of goodies including socks, sparklers and confetti poppers, depending on your preference.
Amaro Montenegro hovers over the spirits world like Batman over Gotham. Equals parts feared and venerated, the iconic Italian liqueur was originally marketed as a health tonic when it was invented in 1885. After a few sips, it's easy to understand why.
The recipe is made from a secret blend of 40 botanicals purportedly sourced from across the world. Apart from a few lucky guesses (we strongly suspect eucalyptus), the only confirmed ingredients are cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, sweet and bitter oranges, dried oranges, artemisia blend, marjoram, oregano and coriander seeds. All of that's to say that the flavor is decidedly complex. A great deal less pungent than amari like Cynar or Braulio, the palate is loaded with a whirlpool of allspice, honey and anise that cling to the back of your throat. If doesn't sound quite to your liking, take note from the critics. Montenegro currently sits at a stellar Raided Score® of 95, the highest of any amaro and among the top four of all liqueurs.
The drink is also a fan-favorite of alcohol industry insiders, leading to its reputation as a so-called bartender's handshake. Typically used in reference to Fernet-Branca, the term describes "in the know" drinks; secret libations that trendy mixologists pass among themselves as they twiddle their mustaches and adjust their suspenders. In the case of Montenegro, the bartender's handshake is the bluntly named M&M shot, a fifty-fifty mix of mezcal and amaro. If you've never tried one, take this as a sign to go buy a bottle of Amaro Montenegro as soon as humanly possible. It'll cost you around $35.
Our third and final brandy-based liqueur hails from the Rhône Valley in Southern France. Master blender Jean-François Bardou harvests heirloom peaches in late July of each year, macerating the fruit in eau-de-vie for up to five weeks before blending them with sugar and three-year brandy reserves. The slender art nouveau-inspired decanter is the cherry, or rather, peach, that brings everything together. We can testify from experience that this bottle barely manages to fit on the bottom of even the most spacious bar cart.
Poured into a glass, the drink offers oodles of peach all the way through. More akin to peach ring than peach smoothie, the taste notches up the gummy bear sweetness alongside fragrant hints of pear, lychee and dried apricot. If you can imagine a vaguely orange fruit, there'll be at least an inkling of it somewhere in the palate. The finish draws out those influences alongside delicate touches of elderflower, raisin and heather, perfect for pouring into your champagne cocktail of choice. This liqueur delivers exactly what it promises on the label, and sometimes, that's all you need.
Apart from the Bellini, recipe recommendations mostly fall into the prefix category: the Peach Margarita, Peach Smash, Peach Old Fashioned, Peach Pit, Peach Mojito and everything bright and juicy in between. So long as you've got $50 to spare, the possibilities are limitless.
The perfect gift for anyone looking to switch up their cream liqueur game from the usual suspects (looking at you, Baileys), Disaronno Velvet is warming, silky cream liqueur with notes of amaretto and apricot.
Disaronno, the iconic Italian amaretto brand, dropped this extension to its lineup in 2020, and the cream liqueur is a creamy iteration of the classic Disaronno.
Smooth, velvety and complex, this bottle delivers more nuance than your everyday cream liqueur, imparting a lovely almond flavor into your coffee, cocktail or (our favorite) boozy milkshake.
THE BAR(C)ART BOOK: The Art of Crafting Tasty and Timeless Cocktails ($27.99)
A fresh cocktail book that will sit nicely on your bar cart, "The Bar(C)art Book" makes for a great gift for any cocktail lover in your life. This 7-by-10-inch hardcover book is stunningly visually appealing and comprises 57 easy-to-follow cocktail and mocktail recipes spanning a range of spirit bases. The book includes 71 illustrations similar to the two you can see above.
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(Photo: Ancho Reyes)[/caption]
(Photo: Chambord)[/caption]
(Photo: Amaro Montenegro)[/caption]
(Photo: Juliette Peach Liqueur)[/caption]
