3 of the Best Ginger Liqueurs That Aren't Domaine de Canton

Ginger is a flavor that’s like a little black dress. You can dress it up, dress it down, but no matter how you pair it, it will work beautifully. It is harder to find something it doesn’t pair well with, than something it does. Although bartenders have traditionally made their own ginger syrups and used ginger beers in cocktails, another easy way to add a depth of ginger flavor is to use a craft ginger liqueur. While Domaine De Canton prides itself on being the original and is the most widely known ginger liqueur, it isn’t the only on worth trying. 

 

The Versatility of Ginger in Cocktails

“Ginger liqueur can be used throughout all the seasons,” says Kira Webster, beverage director for Indo and Nippon Tei, St. Louis, who uses Big O Ginger Liqueur in several of her cocktails. “You can go sweet or dry with it.”

Litty Matthew, who with her husband Melkon Khosrovian co-founded Greenbar Distillery which makes Ginger Liqueur, calls ginger a “classic” flavor. “It’s such a workhorse,” she says. “It’s such a good flavor, and it’s rare that it would make something taste bad.”

“The versatility of (my) ginger liqueur is mind-blowing to me,” says Joshua Morton, founder of Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur. “Back in the day, St. Germain was the bartender’s ketchup. I had a bartender recently tell me ‘Yours is the bartender’s mustard because it’s spicy.’”

Bartenders sometimes think of ginger as a singularly seasonal flavor. “It’s interesting because some bartenders think of ginger as a winter flavor, and some bartenders think of it as a summer flavor,” Morton says. “If they only thought of it as a summer flavor, then you show them a hot cider or ginger red martini, and you can also show them the opposite.”

 

Foster says his frozen mule is popular during the summer. Other popular summer cocktails are margaritas and whiskey sours, but in winter, ginger hot toddies, martinis and Manhattans rule. 

What a lot of bartenders are starting to do, Morton says, is replace their house-made ginger syrups with a ginger liqueur they like. “In the past, my biggest competition was house-made ginger syrups, and what we’ve found in the last couple of years is that previously, they used their own syrups in Penicillin (cocktails), but because of COVID and staffing issues and (the fact that) making ginger syrups are a pain, they’re now using our ginger liqueur instead,” he says.

 

Cooking with Ginger Liqueur

Bartenders aren’t the only professionals using ginger syrups. “Chefs use it all the time,” says Matthew. “For me, I love it in a trifle.”

Bill Foster, who co-founded the Big O Ginger Liqueur with his wife Kathy Kuper, uses Big O in everything from pumpkin pies and bisques to making ginger-wine syrups for meats. “I recently made a sauce with equal parts white wine and Big O, a little bit of garlic, cloves and fresh rosemary, reduced it down and served it with a rack of lamb,” he says. “It was just gorgeous, and you wanted to lick the plate.”

“Ginger is a flavor that is going to endure,” Foster says.

 

Craft Ginger Liqueurs to Try

Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur, $35, New York

Named for the street on which Joshua Morton first made it, Barrow’s Intense Ginger Liqueur is made by hand using two different types of organic ginger - one from China and one from Peru in a neutral cane spirit as a base. “There’s fresh ginger in the bottle because we don’t filter,” and it’s just the same process I used when I made it at home, but it’s just scaled up,” Morton says. “The only things that have changes is that our labeler is more automated than it was, and instead of doing 200 pounds of ginger at a time, now e get in 1,200 pounds at a time, and then hand-trim, wash, grind and macerate it.”

Morton started making ginger liqueurs after he first made homemade limoncellos, and then, when he tried a ginger-y version of it, it was a hit, and eventually, he started making pure ginger liqueurs. Friends eventually nudged him to make it professionally. 

Morton sold his first bottle in 2013, and he won his first award, a platinum for his category in SIP. “We started out in a bunch of accounts in New York City, and we got good reviews, and people were excited about it,” Morton says. “Now, we’re in 48 states, and we’re just about to roll out on the P.F. Chang’s menu nationally.”

Fresh ginger tingles your nose when you crack open the bottle’s swing-top. Its opaque, yellow liquid is 22 percent ABV, and it tastes almost like you’re drinking a chewy, ginger candy with a lovely, big, ginger bite. “My favorite thing is when I talk to a consumer who tells me ‘I don’t like ginger, but ooh, I like this,’” he says.

Because Barrow’s Intense is so versatile, they created an app for people to plug in cocktails or spirits to get recipes, and if there’s a particular spirit or cocktail that doesn’t use ginger in it, they can create one for you.

 

The ginger liqueur is one of three, certified organic liqueurs made by Greenbar Distillery in Los Angeles. “When we formulate a recipe for a liqueur, we start at the bar, thinking of how people will use it,” says Litty Matthew. “We think of what would please the palate, and we’re always looking for balance. We’re trying to simplify the workload for bartenders and consumers. It’s all about usability. We want our (products) to do the heavy lifting.”

The idea for a ginger liqueur came from both the bartending world and the food world of Los Angeles, as ginger as a flavor is popular. Their products are distributed in 45 different states.

To come up with their ginger liqueur, they use a mix of candied ginger, dried ginger, and fresh ginger, then they add lemon juice and evaporated can syrup to give it depth, and then add that to a rum base. The resulting, golden amber liqueur has 1/3 less sugar than most liqueurs, and it has 20 percent alcohol. “We list all of our ingredients on the label,” she says. 

When you open the screw top, a soft waft of ginger hits your nose, and the sweet but not too sweet liqueur offers a pleasant yet balanced bite of ginger. “It’s such a crowd pleaser,” Matthew says. “I love using it with our reposado tequila in a margarita, and the other thing I absolutely love is our spiced rum with our ginger liqueur.”

 

Big O Ginger Liqueur, $34, St. Louis

Bill Foster was inspired to make limoncello, but he made it very badly - twice - so his wife Kathy Kuper suggested he make a ginger liqueur instead. “I started experimenting, and a year and a half later, by absolute serendipity, I came up with a recipe she loved,” Foster says. “I started making it for friends and family, and I served it at dinner parties. In 2009, I was introduced to a friend of a friend, and he tried it, and after trying it, he said ‘You’ve got to bring this to market.’ 

But what Foster didn’t know at the time is that this friend of a friend was a patent attorney, and he helped them get started. They sold their first bottle on Father’s Day in 2011, and today they’re in 43 states and Taiwan. 

Big O is named for Kuper’s grandmother, Opal. “She was born on Repeal Day, and she was a spicy gal,” Foster says. “It’s a very cheeky name, but our branding is classy.”

What makes Big O stand out from most other liqueurs is that it uses brandy as a base, and as a result, it’s got a rich, dark amber color, with 17 percent ABV. When you pour a glass, a rich aroma of ginger and other spices hits your nose. The ginger is soft and rounded on the palate with a bit of an elegance. 

“We still hand chop our ginger,” Foster says. “We use two other spices that are good for digestion. It has this really lovely ability to settle your stomach, and it’s a really great digestif.”

 
LiqueurJeanette HurtComment