Cointreau Calling

“Everything you need to know about Cointreau is written on the bottle,” says Alfred Cointreau. Take a good look at the orange-tinged translucent rectangular bottle and you'll see what he's talking about. Cointreau, Angers, France since 1849 reads a circular embossing at the neck of the bottle. 1849—did I miscalculate the age of the recipe? I think not. As Alfred tells the story, his great-great-grandfather, Édouard Cointreau—whose signature sprawls across one side of the bottle—perfected the recipe in 1875, after 10 years of research; the brand has stayed true to the recipe ever since.

For a liqueur that has been manufactured in the mid-sized town of Angers (pronounced 'on jay'), in the Loire valley in Western France, since it was first created in 1849, Cointreau is infused with substantial international flavour. Though the water is locally sourced, and the sugar and alcohol come from the North of France, the sweet and bitter orange peels that form the core of this perfectly balanced spirit come from Spain, Africa and South America. Break the dried green (bitter orange) and orange (sweet orange) rinds apart and you'll find that the aromas they release though citrusy are distinct. It's the extraction of the essential oils from these peels and balancing them perfectly that give the orange-scented liqueur its memorable flavour.     

Now, ensuring that a liqueur produced in 2015 tastes exactly the same as it did in 1875 takes a certain amount of genius. And right enough, Alfred tells us that the current master distiller and “protector of the Cointreau recipe” Bernadette Langlais has been doing this for the last 30 years. While getting the recipe right requires creating the perfect balance of sweet and bitter orange peels, weather variances inevitably result in a change in the quality of the peels available with every passing year. Bernadette's challenge is to find the best quality peels to ensure that the 1875 recipe can be authentically replicated. She took over from the previous master distiller when he deemed she was ready. And sometime next March, she will choose one of the ten apprentices training under her to take over from her when the time comes.

Unlike other orange liqueurs, Cointreau does not use a brandy base, but a 96 per cent sugar beet alcohol one. Consequently, even if you've been blindsided into thinking this was an orange-coloured liqueur, once you pour it into a glass receptacle, you'll see it's as clear as its container. It clouds over when you drop a few ice cubes in. Alfred tells us this is the test of the quality of the orange liqueur, as you won't witness this opalescent effect—typically caused by the high proportion of essential oils extracted from the orange peels reacting with the ice—with other orange liqueurs.

There was, is and probably always will be just one distillery of the famous l'esprit d'orange in the world. It produces on demand and does not hold on too much stock. It currently produces around 15 million bottles a year and can upscale if necessary. So what happens if there's a bad orange crop one year? Turns out the distillery stocks a year's worth of carefully selected peels in the event of such a contingency, though there hasn't been one yet.  

Cointreau may not tamper with the recipe of its liqueur, but it does innovate in other areas. For instance Alfred tells us that in 2009 they developed a molecular kit for 1,000 bartenders that let them create Cointreau caviar with a piece of gold embedded within. This year, we're given to understand that the brand is arranging to restore antique siphons and gift them to deserving bartenders.

Alfred shows us his passport with his place of birth listed as Angers. Apparently, it is tradition in the Cointreau family for babies to be delivered in the city that their ancestors have inhabited since the 16th century. His mother—like the other women in the family—travelled to Angers when it was time for her baby to be born. Speaking of babies, turns out that it's a tradition for a Cointreau grandfather to add a dash of Cointreau to the bottle of a newly baptised child. Now while Alfred may not remember the taste of Cointreau from his own baptism, he clearly recalls his niece Eléonore being given a taste of the orange liqueur at her baptism when she was around six months.

Alfred's first recollection of tasting Cointreau, was mixing a Margarita with his grandmother when he was around 8 years old. He describes the event as “a nightmare” in which he used Cachaça instead of tequila and even forgot to put ice in the shaker. It's safe to say that under the tutelage of his grandmother—who has taught his siblings and all his 15 cousins to manipulate a shaker—he has become far more adept. When mixing a signature cocktail for Asilo at The Palladium Hotel on a recent trip to Bombay, he decides to keep it simple, adding just a ball of mint, a half of lime and some sprite to a base of Cointreau. The result is quite “refreshing”, if he says so himself. And we sipped, so we know there's truth to his assessment.  

Alfred's tastes change with the time of day and his mood. So while for a romantic dinner he may prefer a Cointreaupolitan (Cointreau, cranberry and lemon juice shaken together), when he's with family he's more likely to be sipping on a Cointreau Fizz (Cointreau, lime and sparkling water) with something extra—mint, a tea-bag, cucumber and basil or other flavours. With friends at parties, he tends to reach for a Sidecar (Cointreau, cognac and lemon) or a Margarita (Cointreau, tequila and lime). While he is a big fan of white spirit in general, especially gin, he is still educating his palette about brown alcohol—whiskey and single malt—which he finds more complicated. Alfred regrets not spending more time behind a professional bar—as he did at the Buddha Bar in Paris—rather than just at his family bar, but he seems open to learning.  

The 28-year old, who is currently the Heritage Manager of Cointreau, has worked in the distillery, been a part of the ingredient selection process and tells us how much he has learned from people who are passionate about what they do. “Behind the square bottle, it is really a story of people who love what they do,” he says. Can he distil Cointreau as well as Bernadette? “No, not at the moment,” he humbly admits. “She is the expert in that. But maybe one day, if I keep learning, I will.” He may have gotten his mixing skills from his grandmother. But he clearly abides by his grandfather's advice to carry his name with respect and pride, but without arrogance.

He studied product development and international marketing amongst other things and previously worked in the advertising department of a newspaper, but it was only when he turned to the family business four years ago that found “his passion”, and that “makes it easier to kick my ass out of bed every morning”. Bangkok-Bombay-Dubai...—with all the travelling he does, “being organised” is his biggest challenge. And as he continues globetrotting to promote the legacy he has inherited, one thing I'm sure off, no matter how much the world changes, my favourite liqueur will always taste the same.