I posted about Shochu recently, and one person commenting noted the difference between Shochu, a Japanese liquor, and Soju, a Korean liquor. (They are similar-tasting, and some Shochu is labelled Soju for marketing purposes.) Not long ago I tried a really interesting citrus liqueur made from Soju called TY KU. TY KU is made from yuzu, an Asian citrus, honeydew melon, ginseng, mangosteen, an Asian superfruit, goji berry, green tea, Soju, and Sake. It's refreshing, with totally exotic flavors that are hard to describe because they're unlike most drinks found in America.

Let's be perfectly frank: the liqueur is quite good. In fact, it's so good that a group of six of us polished the bottle off in one sitting (it's only 20 percent alcohol, so don't schedule an intervention!). But I don't normally write about liqueurs, so in the spirit of honesty, I'll share with you why I'm raving about this bottle.

It has an LED light in the bottom that lights up the liqueur inside, taking me right back to my college days when everyone in the dorm had a lava lamp. The light makes the green liqueur glow irridescent, a perfect conversation piece for a cocktail party (it was for mine!).

Also, apparently TY KU is a celeb favorite. Denzel Washington, Patrick Swayze, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jaime Foxx, and Paris Hilton have all been spotted drinking it.

After the jump, a couple of TK KU recipes (though seriously, it goes down just fine alone).

Tequila is probably the last thing you'd choose to drink after filling your stomach with fine dining. It'd be like getting dressed up in your best clothes--then spilling something on yourself right as you walk out the door. However, Agavero is a tequila-based liqueur that can be savored after any meal. As it first hits your tongue, it's rich and almost has hints of wood and coffee, then it smooths out into a lighter, almost herbal taste

Agavero is created by separately aging blue agave anejo and reposado tequilas in oak barrels. The two liquors are then blended with essence of Damiana flowers, which grow in the mountains of the Jalisco region where Agavero is made--some Indian tribes there believe that Damiana is an aphrodisiac. While mostly designed to be sipped on its own, Agavero can also be used in mixed drinks such as the Mexican Cosmopolitan or to spike a post-dinner coffee. The bottle is designed to look like the spiky flower of the blue agave plant, with embossed leaves creeping up the sides.

It's pink, it sparkles, and it comes in a fancy bottle. It's Nuvo!

Nuvo is the world's first sparkling liqueur, made with vodka and French sparkling wine. None of that, in theory, would make it pink. But, it's pink. Magic! (additives!)

It is definitely best enjoyed very cold, and is meant to be served in champagne flutes over ice.

The flavor and aroma are delicate; you can definitely taste the wines used (very fruity). There is a strength to it, though. The best way I can find to describe it is to say it tastes like sparkling white zinfandel with a ridiculously high alcohol content...and frankly, it's not bad!

Nuvo, in it's signature bottle, makes a great gift and looks chic when served at parties. Its classy pink color makes it feel just a little bit more special than champagne or any of your usual liqueurs. Add more vodka to it to make a sparkling pink cosmopolitan! We approve.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a review of Vlada, a New York bar that specializes in infused vodkas. As I mentioned in my post, my experiences at Vlada had made me nostalgic for the moonshine that I had once enjoyed in Southwest Virginia. Back in the day, I used to buy 'shine by the gallon and infuse it with fruits, herbs, honey, and other ingredients, producing a wide range of aperitifs. While I'm a huge fan of store-bought liqueurs, I have yet to meet the mass-produced tipple that can rival the blueberry-infused moonshine, moonshine-based absinthe, or moonshine krupnikas that I once made.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided that the time had come to restart my experiments in fruit infusion. I had a half bottle of Everclear in the liquor cabinet, which I quickly determined was still relatively fresh and potent. A trip down to the farmer's market gave me a couple of pints of fresh blueberries, which I washed, dried, picked over, and packed in mason jars. I covered the fruit in grain alcohol, closed the lids, and set them in the back of one of my kitchen cabinets. Apart from giving them a daily shake, I was content to let time and the 190-proof alcohol do their work.

A week later, the alcohol was stained a deep purple and the berries were gray. A quick taste assured me that the grain was still mighty strong, but was now infused with a nice blueberry flavor. Wanting something a little more intense, I let a second batch of berries steep for a week in the alcohol. Afterward, I had a very alcoholic, very intensely flavored blueberry liquor. I also had a second batch of slightly sour-tasting blueberry alcohol that I got from running the leftover blueberries through my fruit juicer.

Years ago, my friend's parents were cleaning out their liquor cabinet and gave me the above -- Ermita Ron Escarchado (translated to Ermita Frosty Rum). Holy crap, this stuff is good.

Ecarchado is liqueur enriched with sugar by putting an aniseed branch inside. Sugar than pulls itself out of the liqueur and crystallizes around the sprig and the base of the bottle, which ends up creating a thicker, more sugary liqueur. In the words of my friend, the rum becomes "viscous sh*t." (In the good way.)

The two main types of escarchado, after searching the web, seem to be the ron/rum variety and the anisette variety, although I've also seen brandy listed occasionally. It's not the easiest thing to find (if anyone finds it in Canada, please let me know), but can be scored in the states through sites like this, and much more readily in Europe.

Cherries Jublie is one of those foods that I've heard of but never had, like Baked Alaska or Pig's Feet or Mutton. Is Cherries Jubilee something that you set on fire, or is it the name of a stripper from some movie or TV show I once saw?

It's something you set on fire! Flambeed, to be exact. A cherries and liqueur dessert that is often served over vanilla ice cream. Here's a recipe from WhatsCookingInAmerica.net, and here's another variation from CooksRecipes.com.

Wild Turkey American Honey Liqueur is 35.5% abv. / 71 proof and is made with honey and Wild Turkey bourbon. The color is a medium to dark gold. I am not a fan of most of the Wild Turkey products, but was intrigued by this bourbon and honey liqueur. So when I saw it on sale really cheap at the New Hampshire State liquor store I said "what the heck" and picked up a bottle.

The aroma is slightly sharp and sour/sweet and tangy. You can sense the presence of bourbon under some very strange top notes that are camphor like, and salty, and of hot and volatile machine oils. The more I tried to smell the liqueur, the less I smelled anything, until my nose went numb. Then I had a difficult time discerning the aroma at all. I never had my nose go blind before and I wasn't sure I actually wanted to taste it, but I got up my nerve and proceeded on.

The taste was a lot like the aroma, and not very pleasant at all. I kept taking sips trying to find something to like in this liqueur, but could find nothing to like at all. My tongue got as numb as my nose had earlier, and although I am a glutton for punishment I finally had enough of this and poured out the rest of the glass. I don't believe that I actually paid for this stuff. I'd give it away but that would be mean. I rarely write about bad things and prefer to think that I like to make recommendations for products that I like or that sound interesting, but I felt I had to warn other unsuspecting folks about this stuff. When I try to put my thoughts on this into one word, what comes to mind is VILE.

Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur of the Alps is 35% abv. / 70 proof. It is made in Austria from Arolla Stone Pine fruit from the fresh, young, (not dried out) pine cone. The liqueur is an all natural, limited production, artisinal spirit with seasonal variations for each year. The bottles are numbered and soon online production notes will be available for each batch so you can find out all the details and particulars about the bottle you hold in your hand. My bottle is # 12-06-A04-685.

The body is light with a beautiful, medium red / amber brown color. The aroma is a luscious pine with floral, fruit, and spicy notes. There are hints of sweet, mild turpentine as well. The taste is of strong, floral pine, like chewing on the delicate young spring fronds at the end of a branch. Sweet, hot and cool at the same time, floral and spice flavors peek through here and there leading to a long and complex finish. While traditionally it is sipped from an eau-de-vie glass or snifter, I found it almost overwhelming to sip it straight. On ice it is mellowed quite a bit and you can really appreciate what is going on in the glass. This liqueur might not be for everyone. It is strong and unusual tasting, completely unique, and not for the faint of heart.

St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur is 20% abv. / 40 proof artisinal French liqueur that is available in limited quantities. It is a very light pale gold color and a medium light body. The aroma is primarily flowers and fruit, think of pears and lychee, and is lightly sweet and tart on the nose. The taste is like the aroma, very floral plus lychee's and pears, with maybe the slightest hint of citrus. It has a refreshing tartness up front, a mild sweetness in the middle, with a long finish of the two combined. The taste and smell stays with you for quite a while, filling you mouth and nose with its luscious fruit and flowers.

St. Germain is an absolutely delightful liqueur and since it isn't too sweet I find that even people who dislike most sweet liqueurs enjoy it very much. While it is an elegant liqueur for sipping straight or on crushed ice for a post meal libation, it also is fabulous in cocktails.

The elderflower has been used for medicinal purposes for ages and so it has also been available in syrup form for quite a long time. Many bartenders have also used it in various cocktails, but St. Germain is the first elderflower liqueur / spirit. Released in the US early last year, it is created from fresh picked elderflowers which are macerated / infused in eau de vie and/or distilled (the process is secret, of course), plus small amounts of citrus, and sweetened just a little.

Not long ago I wrote about Perique Liqueur de Tabac, a new liqueur that was just released. It is a very rare liqueur with only extremely limited quantities available. As of now you can only get it from the distributors in the UK by mail order. Jade Liqueurs creates and distributes only small amounts of very fine, small batch, hand made liqueurs and spirits; so don't expect it to become more available in the future. A 500ml bottle costs £22, this comes to approximately US$45, but with shipping and handling the total is closer to US$95. I was lucky enough to receive a bottle as a gift not long ago, and I was thrilled to crack it open and try it.

Perique Liqueur de Tabac is a 31% abv. / 62 proof liqueur made for Jade Liqueurs by Distillerie Combier in France from Eau de vie de vin, distillation of Perique tobacco, and is sweetened with sugar. It has no other ingredients and is one of the most unusual, and lovely tasting liqueurs I have had the pleasure to experience. It is elegant, refined, but with a masculine touch.

I am not a big fan of creamy things, including cream-based soups and cream-based drinks and desserts. That means that while I like the flavor of Bailey's, I just can't drink very much of it at one time. When I got a bottle of the new Bailey's with a hint of Caramel Irish Cream Liqueur, I loved the flavor (more than Jonathan did) and began to come up with recipes that would show it off. I settled on baking a batch of cookies, though the liqueur would do well in a cake, too.

To play up the caramel flavor, I used brown sugar in the cookies and stirred in a combination of white chocolate and butterscotch chips. The overall flavor from the liqueur was subtle, but noticeable, and the mix of sugar, chips and Bailey's was a winning combination. The cookies are on the softer/chewier side, so the chips actually stand out as adding a slightly firmer texture to the treat.

If Bailey's isn't your thing, or if you can't find the caramel, not to worry. I included some variations after the recipe:

The Liquor Snob just brought to my attention that there is a new tobacco based liqueur called Perique Liqueur de Tabac .

Perique Liqueur de Tabac, 31% abv / 62 proof for MSR £22.00. The press release says "Following many months of development, Jade Liqueurs finally releases its much anticipated tobacco liqueur, Perique... The unique terroir of the Mississippi River gives Perique the intense spices and aromas that contribute to the delicate balance of this fine liqueur. Perique (liqueur) is entirely artisanal in its construction, and captures the nuances of this ancient tobacco. Perique is best enjoyed in the same manner as one would a fine liqueur or brandy. Due to the difficulty in procuring this rare tobacco, Perique liqueur is available only in limited quantity."

I am very curious about this liqueur, first because it's a unique liqueur, and you know how I love those, and secondly because it's made with Perique tobacco.

Entries have closed in the Drinkable Desserts contest that Bailey's is running to promote their new flavors of the creamy liqueur. Unfortunately, this means that you no longer have the chance to submit your own concoction to be featured in an upcoming issue of Gourmet magazine, but looking to the positive side of things, you still get to try the drinks and have a say in what recipe wins the contest. Between now and January 31st, a selection of different drink recipes will be featured each week. Readers can try out the recipes and vote for their favorites in both the professional and amateur categories. A total of ten finalists will be selected and the overall winners will be selected based on the number of votes (in the amateur category) or by a panel of pros (in the professional category).

Read on to get a taste of one of the drinks, The Baileys® Vanilla Bean:

Redcliff American Liqueur was intended to be the "signature liqueur" of America, the US answer to Irish Baileys, Italian Amaretto, and German's Jagermeister. It is cola flavored, with a "combination of 15 secret ingredients" that include "cinnamon, lime, eight-year-old Virgin Islands rum, vermouth, vodka, bourbon bean vanilla, anise and hazelnut."

The former Seagram executive, Frank Arcella, came up with the idea and chose cola as a flavor that was representative of the US. The spirit can be taken in shots or sipped over ice, as well as used cocktails and mixed drinks, including martinis and (of course) rum and coke.

If you're wondering why you haven't heard of Redcliff, it's because it isn't very popular. New liqueurs have traditionally been slow to catch on in the US, but this one doesn't sound that good, so it's not surprising that it hasn't been a hit with consumers yet. The biggest problem is that it is reported to have a strong "lingering aftertaste" that can't be hidden with other mixers and really puts people off.