crème de menthe is a sweet liqueur flavored with mint of French origin, available in a clear version but more commonly seen in its bright green form, the color furnished either by mint leaves or artificially. Its roots go deep: mint is among the earliest botanicals used to flavor spirits and impart their medicinal value to them, and “water of red mint” is among the formulae included in Hieronymus Brunschwig’s pioneering 1512 book on distillation. See botanical. By the 1700s, mint distillates had moved beyond strict medicinal use, as a 1721 reference to the “dram of rum and mint-water” served at a Boston tavern demonstrates. As the century progressed, the spirit was more likely to be sweetened. In 1757, London distiller Ambrose Cooper wrote of his recipe, “You may dulcify it with sugar if required.” On the other hand, the liqueur version could not yet have been a standard spirit: when Jacques-Francois Demachy, a French pharmacist, published a recipe for it in 1775, he added, “I believe I am the first person to have imagined this liqueur.” Pippermint Get, a mint liqueur created in Revel, France, in 1796 (it assumed its present name many years later), appears to be an early commercial example of the type. Its bottle advertised its ability to rid the body of myriad ailments, including cholera. Another prominent early brand was Menthe-Pastille, created by Emile Giffard, in 1885 in Angers.
Crème de menthe is typically made by infusing peppermint or Corsican mint in water, distilling it, and mixing the result with grain alcohol, which is then sweetened (the mint can also be infused directly in alcohol, which is then rectified in the same way). It comes in two varieties, green and white (the latter was traditionally of higher proof). Crème de menthe, which enjoyed a vogue in American bars in the 1890s, is a critical ingredient in a handful of classic cocktails, typically of the after-dinner variety, including the Stinger, the Grasshopper, and, of course, the Crème de Menthe Frappé (where it is shaken with ice and poured into a glass full of fine ice). The liqueur was also popular as a stand-alone aperitif (Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot favored it). Its reputation suffered in the mid-twentieth century when naturally rendered versions were replaced by artificially flavored and colored brands.
See also Grasshopper and Stinger.
Brunschwig, Hieronymus. The Vertuose Boke of Distyllacyon. Translated by Laurence Andrew. London: 1527.
Demachy, Jacques-Francois. L’Art du distillateur liquoriste. Paris: 1775.
“To the Readers of the Courant in New Hampshire.” New England Courant, December 18, 1721, 3.
By: Robert Simonson and David Wondrich