Boozy Book Review: Liqueur: A Global History by Lesley Jacobs Solmonson

The Edible series of small, hardcover “global history” books now covers 95 topics by my count. The latest is Liqueur: A Global History by Lesley Jacobs Solmonson (August 2, 2024). This is not the only book about drinks in the series. In addition to the history of foods like sandwiches and ingredients like coconuts, beans, and avocados, there are boozy books about the history of gin (also by Solmonson), vodka, whiskey, rum, and other spirits, plus non-alcoholic beverages like milk and soda. I enjoy and trust the authors and information in this series, though some of the books from ten-plus years ago could probably use a refresh in light of new information.

Author Lesley Solmonson

In addition to her gin and new liqueur history books, Solmonson is the co-author of "The 12 Bottle Bar," a clever book with hundreds of cocktail recipes executable with one specific set of spirits. It predates many of the “three ingredient” and “equal parts” recipe books that came out in the race to the bottom of simple cocktail recipe books. (These were, in turn, a reaction to the impractically complicated recipe books requiring ten ingredients and a centrifuge to construct.) Solmonson’s writing leans toward the practical and direct rather than flowery and romantic, which is just what was required here.

Era by Era

In Liqueur: A Global History, the author has only about 150 pages to cover the topic. The history of liqueurs encompasses the entire history of alcohol and distillation, plus the history of sugar and other sweeteners, plus the history of spices as healing foods. Liqueurs were nearly all used as medicines long before they made their way into brunch cocktails.

In the first chapter, Solmonson presents the history of sugar and other sweeteners, along with that of distillation in the Islamic Golden Era (roughly 700-1200 ACE) and into the medical schools in southern Europe (1200s-1400s) where modern drinkable alcohol-based medicines were formalized. She then takes a step back to discuss the spice trade, including along the Silk Routes, the influences of The Crusades, and the later Age of Exploration. In that era Europe is introduced to cacao and vanilla, for example, and in exchange the Spanish oranges introduced to Curacao became the bitter oranges that would later flavor our Margaritas as curacao liqueur. Many of the “exotic” ingredients transported back and forth around the world wound up in liquified form.

Next, we study early printed distillation manuals and what they reveal about the production and purposes of medicinal alcohol, along with how the Dutch explorers converted their bounty of imported botanicals into liqueurs back at home, while also attempting to build sugar plantations in the New World. Into the 1600s, when liqueurs finally became associated with recreational drinking, but this was followed by the Gin Craze in London that saw gin used in a decidedly non-curative manner.

The author seems to have a particular interest in The Enlightenment, the intellectual and philosophical movement of the 17th and the 18th centuries favoring knowledge and rationalism that set the stage for the forthcoming Scientific Revolution. For this section, we turn to France and café and salon society, where people drank not just coffee but also liqueurs and lemonade in the build-up to the French Revolution. I enjoyed the mix of information about what distillers were making as well as how and where people were drinking and serving those distillates in different countries.

We follow along to post-Revolutionary Europe and the commercialization of the sugar beet (which radically altered the price of both sugar and sugar beet-derived alcohol), and detour into the history of monastic Chartreuse and Benedictine liqueurs. Then into the modern era we read the history of crème liqueurs and triple sec, before turning to Italy and its amaretto, sambuca, and maraschino. We also learn about gentian, cinchona, and other bitter botanicals found in amaros and fernets.

Then finally, it’s time for mixed drinks! We read the history of punches of the British before turning to America where mixology blossomed and maraschino, orange curacao, and absinthe made their way into the new “fancy cocktails” that were suddenly in vogue. We learn the specific history and birth of distillers like Hiram Walker and products including Southern Comfort, Forbidden Fruit, and other homeborn brands.

We pick up the cocktail trail after Prohibition and trace the journey into tiki drinks that, while great on their own, primed the palate for the sickly sweet disco drinks with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors that came later in the 1970s. That era brought us the Alabama Slammer, Harvey Wallbanger, Midori Sour, and other liqueur-forward cocktails that led to the 1980s Fuzzy Navels and Screaming Orgasms. It was the best of times for liqueur; it was the worst of times for quality cocktails.

After a look at the Appletini, Cosmopolitan, and Espresso Martini, we enter the craft cocktail renaissance that inspired the recreation of “lost” liqueurs like Swedish Punsch and crème de violette. Everything old becomes new again.

Back material in the book includes about ten pages of cocktail recipes and a catalog of liqueurs from around the world.

A Brief Summation of a Brief Book

Liqueur: A Global History is a highly condensed history of a very big topic, covering world history through the lens of alcohol, trade, medicine, and mixology. It’s a trip through time, popping in to visit the producers as well as the consumers of liqueurs in specific countries in specific eras, like a time travel TV series where every episode that takes place in the past, informs the present.

ReviewCamper EnglishJuly 22, 2024liqueurComment