The purple reign of Parfait Amour

By chance I found myself with three different brands of Parfait Amour in the house recently—Bols, Boudier and Cartron. This liqueur is possibly most used in cocktails for its purple colour, but despite its similarity in this respect to crème de violette it is not primarily flavoured with flowers. Recipes vary and Bols, who claim to have invented it, do use rose and violet petals to make it, but the flavour that seems to link the different interpretations is actually citrus.

The Cartron website doesn’t give away the recipe but implies that this liqueur is all about the citron. The nose is strongly of orange and lemon, as is the palate, which is sweet, with a liquorice note and only the subtlest florality. It does make you wonder why someone would come up with a citron liqueur then decide to make it purple—and this sample is the most intensely coloured of the three—but the site has a quote from 1769 about the use of citron in Parfait Amour so it has clearly been made this way for a long time.

(Left to right) Boudier, Bols and Cartron

Boudier’s version also hits you with oranges on the nose and something sweet like crystallised angelica or parma violets. On the palate it is drier and seems more spiritous than its 30% ABV. There is orange here again and perhaps something nutty. The website has nothing to say about this liqueur, but I gather that curaçao oranges, rose petals, vanilla and almonds go into it.

Bols’s ingredients are much the same as Boudier’s—orange peel, vanilla, almonds and “flower petals (principally roses and violets)”—but their version is quite different. They speak of how many a lover’s quarrel has dissolved under the influence of this drink, and it does have the reputation of being a dainty tipple for ladies. (It’s interesting, then, that Cartron talk of how it is “ideal in light and fresh cocktails” and don’t actually suggest you drink it neat.) The Bols example has a more confectionary nose and is sweetest on the tongue. More than anything it reminds me of that nougat that has bits of candied fruit in it, a character that must come from the almond and vanilla as well as the citrus. I would say that the Bols version is the most distinctive—the others seem a bit vague by comparison—and is the only one I can imagine dainty ladies choosing to sip. The Boudier seems a bit too austere and the Cartron has that liquorice edge that might prove divisive.

Although I don’t have any to hand, De Kuyper also make a Parfait Amour that they describe as a marriage of citrus (lemon and bitter, fragrant curaçao orange) and vanilla. Marie Brizzard make one with sweet oranges, orange blossom and vanilla. Giffard make theirs with orange, vanilla, violets and geranium and Lejay use bitter orange peel and violet buds.

A Jupiter, made to Ted Haigh's proportions

There actually aren’t many classic cocktails involving Parfait Amour. The Savoy Cocktail Book from 1930 has just two (there are significantly more with crème de violette and, I suspect, more with Crème Yvette as well), the Jupiter and the Trilby No.2. No one seems to know anything about their origins, but I’m assuming the Trilby was titled after the play of the same name,* as was the wont with smash-hit plays in those days.

Jupiter
2 shots gin
1 shot dry white vermouth
1 tsp Parfait Amour
1 tsp orange juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. The first time I put a row of these together, using the different brands, I’m not sure what to make of it: it seems very much of the time when the Martini was the bedrock and many “new” cocktails were just slightly contaminated versions of it. The tiny quantity of orange juice doesn’t seem to add much apart from a cloudiness: it’s possible that this opacity in conjunction with the Parfait Amour is intended to create a pale sky colour (Jupiter is Roman god of the sky), though in the case of the dark Cartron you get something that looks like a severely polluted sky just before an ugly storm, while the others veer more towards orangey-pink.

A Trilby cocktail

The Boudier’s citrus character blends easily enough with the gin and does poke its head up now and then with notes of sweetness and stemminess too. The Cartron has a similar effect, though it gets a bit lost. The Bols version is certainly more distinctive: while the juniper/Parfait interface is not horrible, it will come as a bit of a shock to Martini drinkers. Overall it is more cloying and doesn’t seem to sit comfortably with the seriousness of the Dry Martini ingredients. Might go better with Babycham.

However, noting that Ted Haigh, in Forgotten Spirits and Vintage Cocktails (2009), champions the Jupiter but is very particular about measures—in his recipe the gin is at 45ml and the vermouth at 20ml—I have another go the next night, using his exact quantities (and Bols liqueur) and the result is indeed more elegant. I must have overdone the Parfait Amour previously, as this version is actually quite dry. This probably does make the best of the liqueur; its nougat character takes on a hint of (white?) chocolate in this subtle incarnation.

Trilby
1 shot Scotch whisky
1 shot red vermouth
1 shot Parfait Amour
2 dashes absinthe
2 dashes orange bitters

Again, the Carton and Boudier versions produced only a fairly subtle influence. The Bols Parfait Amour made its presence felt more, sitting in the mix with the malty rasp of the Scotch, the herbal sweetness of the vermouth and the pungence of the absinthe (I used just a rinse), though whether the end result is complex or conflicting is debatable.

A Blonde Bombshell

I have a feeling that Parfait Amour can be quite a busy blend of flavours in itself, and so might actually work better in simpler combinations. Experimenting, I found that just adding a dash or two to a glass of Champagne or sparkling wine was one of the most satisfying serves, enabling the flavours of the liqueur to open up but not overwhelm (and in fact Bols claim on their website that this combination is drunk at weddings all over the world). There are a number of cocktails that are basically this, plus another ingredient as well. The Blonde Bombshell, for example, recommended on Bols’s website, adds elderflower liqueur:

Blonde Bombshell
15ml Parfait Amour
15ml elderflower liqueur
Top with Champagne or sparkling wine

The two liqueurs do complement each other, with the prickly high notes of the elderflower slotting in with the Bols’s warm nutty and vanilla layers. But I find myself boosting the elderflower (I’m using St Germain) to get a good balance, and frankly the whole thing is a bit too sweet for me anyway. Adding more sparkling wine helps, as does squeezing a bit of lemon juice into the blend.

A Double Perfect

The Double Perfect does the same thing but uses triple sec instead of elderflower liqueur. Again they specify 15ml for each liqueur but, warned by the Blonde Bombshell, I start with just 10ml and frankly this is all you need (unless you’re using a very large glass).

Double Perfect
10ml Parfait Amour
10ml Cointreau
Top with Champagne or sparkling wine

The Cointreau cranks up the orange aspects already present in the Parfait Amour and controls the confectionary nougat elements, making for a relatively elegant, poised use of the liqueur, especially in these reduced quantities. (I’m using Bols, which has a broader flavour than the other two brands, which are more citrus to start off with, so I’m not sure how much point there would be to this blend using Cartron or Boudier.)

And as a final test, my eye was caught by this combo on diffordsguide.com, to which he gives a higher score than most other Parfait cocktails:

The Brazen Martini

Brazen Martini
2½ shots bisongrass vodka
¼ shot Parfait Amour

Once again it really only takes a teaspoon of the liqueur to do the job, though I’m not convinced that it is a job worth doing. The pungent herbal element of the vodka, with its bitter aftertaste, interfaces interestingly with the plump, sweet vanilla of the Parfait Amour in the same way as the absinthe does in the Trilby, but it is more thought-provoking than actually pleasant, and is really not a cocktail I would be keen to have again.

As you can probably tell, I can’t get terribly excited about Parfait Amour—and I’m in good company, as the great David Embury, author of The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948), ranked it with Forbidden Fruit as his two least favourite liqueurs. The best delivery methods for it are the Jupiter, the Double Perfect or just a small 5–10ml dose in sparkling wine—but as you can see, the key here is to use it sparingly.

* The play, an adaption of the Georges du Maurier novel, played first at the Boston Museum in 1895 before Herbert Beerbohm Tree brought it to the UK, where it ran with great success at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Trilby O’Ferrall is the female lead. The Trilby hat gets its name from the play as well.

Some wedding cocktails

A Second Honeymoon

June is traditionally a month for weddings and, as it happens, I recently put on an engagement party for a couple of Candlelight Club customers who wanted a celebration with the speakeasy style of our events. So I needed a short menu of cocktails with an appropriate theme.

As it happened I’d recently been reading Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails (2009) and remembered coming across the Honeymoon cocktail. The recipe given is:

Honeymoon
60ml calvados
15ml Bénédictine
15ml orange curaçao
15ml lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. The recipe was first published in Hugo Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks (1917) and it later became a signature drink at Bob Cobb’s Los Angeles chain of Brown Derby restaurants, the first of which opened in 1926. Ensslin’s recipe specified “apple brandy” and later examples used Applejack, the spirit made by Laird’s in New Jersey that blends apple brandy with neutral spirit. But Haigh, along with Dale DeGroff, recommends the Normandy apple brandy Calvados instead—and if you live in the UK this is a lot easier to come by than Applejack (which is also a good £30 a bottle if you can find it).

It’s a great cocktail, well balanced and with all the ingredients poking through—the sweetness of the curacao in equilibrium with the tart lemon juice, the dry apple flavour of the brandy and the herbal spikiness of the Bénédictine. (Bénédictine claims to have been made by monks in Normandy since 1510 but the last family owner of the business apparently admitted in a TV interview that it was invented by his forebear Alexandre Le Grand in the nineteenth century with the help of a local chemist. The recipe is allegedly known only to three people and evidently many have tried to copy it, as the company have a “Hall of Counterfeits” at their headquarters.)

Mind you, for a party environment this recipe was a bit too strong: Benedictine is 40%, as is Cointreau (arguably a triple sec rather than a curaçao—a pretty moot distinction—but it’s what everyone uses…), so it’s basically it’s a big glass of three and half measures of spirits. So I tried replacing the curaçao with passion fruit purée—inspired, I admit, by the appropriate name for a wedding-themed cocktail. Monin make one, as do Funkin, and they are completely different—the Monin version uses sugar to preserve the fruit but it has a nice strong passion fruit smell and taste. The Funkin one is much drier and tarter and I think their method is to pasteurise the fruit in the foil pouch it comes it, meaning it will keep pretty much indefinitely until you open it. I think I prefer Monin’s, for its more definite taste and fragrance—plus I had an open bottle in my cellar for a year and it seemed impervious to decay. But you have to bear in mind the sweetness.

Second Honeymoon
1½ shots Calvados
½ shot Bénédictine
½ shot Monin passion fruit purée
1 shot lemon juice

This version is not so alcoholic and the increase in lemon juice is to balance the sweetness of the purée. I have to say that this is delicious, one of those pleasing blends where you can taste all the ingredients but they come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. (I’ve become a real fan of this purée as a cocktail ingredient: I came up with another toothsome cocktail by blending it with Gosling’s Black Seal rum, lime juice and orange juice.)

I remembered seeing a recipe in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) called a Wedding Belle. Again it was a bit strong for a party so I increased the orange juice from the original specification of a sixth part (which would have been just half a shot in this recipe) and served it long over ice.

Wedding Belle
1½ shots gin
1½ shots Dubonnet
½ shot cherry brandy
1½ shots orange juice (though use less if you want to be more authentic)

A long version of the Wedding Belle

Shake with ice and strain into an ice-filled highball. (Original version, with less OJ, is strained into a chilled cocktail glass.) This is a moreish drink with the fruity appeal of cherries followed up by the complexity of the Dubonnet.

The couple really fancied having a Bellini on the menu, so I thought I’d try playing around with the recipe to give it a special touch. A traditional Bellini is just a blend of white peach purée and Prosecco, a drink invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice some time in the first half of the twentieth century, inspired by the culinary tradition of marinating peaches in wine. Many people add a half shot of peach liqueur, but I thought I’d try replacing this with Parfait Amour, for obvious reasons.

Parfait Amour is one of these ingredients that fell out of popularity before being revived in recent years. Examples are made by Bols, Boudier, Giffard, Cartron and Marie Brizzard, and probably others too now, but the recipe seems to vary. It has a strong citrus element, but also floral notes, sometimes violets, sometimes roses, maybe vanilla or almonds. I was able to get hold of examples by Boudier and Cartron. The latter is drier and with a stronger, more distinctly floral flavour. Parfait Amour is always a violet colour and here I encountered a problem: using Funkin white peach purée (which isn’t really white but a sort of beige) you end up with something that is a rather unappetising sludge brown colour. With the Boudier example you could just about get away with it, but I didn’t feel that the liqueur really added much, being too delicately flavoured. With the Cartron it made much more sense, adding a distinct crystallised-violet note, but the colour was an issue, so I tried adding just half a teaspoon of grenadine for the colour, which worked. Because the Cartron is drier, the sweetness of the grenadine didn’t upset anything.

Bridal Bellini
2 shots white peach purée
½ shot Cartron Parfait Amour
½ tsp (2.5ml) grenadine
Sparkling wine

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a Champagne flute or saucer. Top up with sparkling wine and stir gently.