crème de cacao is a chocolate-flavored liqueur with a high sugar content. As its name implies, it was first made in France, at least as early as 1807, when a published recipe called for cacao, vanilla, and cinnamon, in addition to sugar, water, and eau-de-vie. See eau-de-vie. Current-day commercial offerings come in white and dark iterations—the white typically made through re-distillation of the base spirit with cacao, and the dark through percolation (similar to how drip coffee is made).
Although crème de cacao began cropping up in cocktail recipes around the turn of the twentieth century, later sweet-toothed concoctions such as the Brandy Alexander and the Grasshopper really put it on the mixological map. See Alexander Cocktail and Grasshopper. It was perhaps used to best advantage by London bartender Charles A. Tuck in his beguiling Twentieth Century cocktail, first memorialized in the Café Royal Cocktail Book of 1937. See Tarling, William James “Billy.”
See also liqueur.
Bouillon-Lagrange, Edme Jean Baptiste. L’art de composer facilement, et a peu du frais, les liqueurs de table. Paris: 1807.
By: David Mahoney