France produces the world’s best-known and most valuable grape brandies (See Armagnac and cognac), the world’s best-known apple brandy (see calvados), many of the world’s most respected liqueurs (see Bénédictine; Chartreuse; Cointreau; and Grand Marnier), and a host of aperitifs, digestifs, and fortified wines (see Picon; Dubonnet Cocktail; and Suze) essential to the cocktail. Spirit and liqueur production is so entwined with France that even in non-Francophone countries, generic liqueurs are often known by their French names, such as crème de cacao, crème de cassis, crème de menthe, triple sec, and many others.
The export value of French spirits is enormous—in 2019, the country shipped 53 million nine-liter cases of spirits valued at more than €4.66 billion. Currently, twenty-two French regions are granted the French geographical designation “appellation d’origine contrôlée” (AOC) on their spirit labels, with most of them variants of cognac (9) and Armagnac (5), although the list also includes the island of Martinique for rum. See rhum agricole.
Distillation is said to have entered France in the late 1200s, when the Catalan alchemist Arnold de Vilanova [also known as Arnaud de Villeneuve (1238–1311)] is thought to have been the first to distill French wines. It was certainly there by 1310, when Vital du Four (1260–1327), the Franciscan prior of Eauze (in the heart of the modern Armagnac region), recorded instructions for its manufacture and detailed its medicinal and social virtues.
As trade routes opened, spices and ingredients including ginger, orange, and chocolate made their way into liqueurs, with prosperous households installing their own stills. They became more fashionable after Catherine De Medici (1519–1589) married Henry II of France and introduced the culture of liqueur drinking to the French court. Spirits were employed regularly as anesthetics and as digestive aids.
The European trade of spirits is thought to have commenced around 1517 when a “barrique d’eau ardent” was shipped from Bordeaux—presumably, it was distilled from wine made in or around what is today the Cognac region. The growing interest among Dutch and English traders in French wine contributed to the commercialization of brandy—wine that spoiled during shipping led them to promote distillation as a preservative of the desirable alcohol. See spirits trade, history of.
Until the mid-twentieth century, traveling distillers were a common sight in the French countryside as farmers looked to benefit from excess fruit. Many of those stills are to be found at distilleries in the Armagnac and Calvados regions, though they no longer travel.
While invented in Switzerland, absinthe has a deep cultural connection to the French as the infamous high-proof wormwood- and anise-flavored beverage garnered enormous popularity in Belle Epoque Paris of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries until it was banned (from 1915 until the early twenty-first century). See
Chartreuse was developed in 1840 by Carthusian monks in the French Alps using a 1605 formula as a starting point. Bénédictine was first produced in 1863, following—as the company maintained—a 1510 monastic formula. Other French spirits worth noting include the pomace-based marc; the blend of grape juice, grape must, and cognac called pineau des Charentes; the mainly Alsatian eau-de-vie kirschwasser, as well as eaux-de-vie poire Williams, framboise, and fraise. See eau-de-vie; kirschwasser; marc; and Pineau des Charentes. France has since the late twentieth century also become a major force in vodka production, with brands including Grey Goose and Cirôc important internationally.
The French were the first Europeans to accept the American school of mixology—or rather, the Parisians were. See Lefeuvre, Émile. American-style bars have operated in that city from the 1840s on, and it still hosts some of the world’s leading cocktail bars. See Harry’s New York Bar. France’s major contributions to cocktails include the 1900s Rose (the Chatham Bar in Paris), the 1920s Mimosa (the Ritz Bar, Paris), the Sidecar (although that is disputed), and Dijon’s Kir, popularized in the 1960s. See Kir; Mimosa; Rose; and Sidecar.
Faith, Nicholas. Cognac. London: Mitchel Beazley, 2005.
“First Distillation of the French Wines.” L’encyclopédie du Cognac. https://www.pediacognac.com/en/la-distillation-dela-distillation-enla-distillation/gegin-der-destillation-derfranzosischen-weinenfirst-distillation-of-the-french-winesdebut-de-la-distillation-des-vins-francais/ (accessed March 19, 2021).
Furno, Vitalis de. Liber selectiorum remediorum pro conservanda sanitate. Mainz: 1531.
Mattsson, Henrik. Calvados: The World’s Premier Apple Brandy. Malmo, Sweden: Flavourrider.com, 2005.
By: Jack Robertiello