The Spirit World

Lichido is a new liqueur, created in France, that capitalizes on the recent focus on lychee as an interesting and light element for beverages. If you are not familiar with lychees a quick web search will turn up lots of information. For a short summary, the lychee is a sub-tropical fruit first grown in South China but can be found in many places throughout the world now. It has an important role in Chinese culture and is called the “king of fruits”. It is a small fruit with very sweet flesh.

Lichido is not just a lychee liqueur but actually combines vodka, cognac, “essence of lichees” (another version of the spelling, less common I think), guava and white peach juice.

I’m going to be honest right up front in admitting that lychee has never been one of my favorite fruits but I have enjoyed the occasional lychee martini that I’ve been finding on menus. In addition, reading the Lichido description threw up all kinds of red flags for me. “Essence of lichees”? What does that actually mean? Guava and white peach juices - just another name for sugar, if you ask me.

So, when this complimentary bottle arrived on my doorstep (it’s not available in Washington at this time) I set up a multi-part tasting plan in order to take into consideration my personal prejudice.

I first tried the liqueur on its own (and on my own) just straight up. The color is very nice. It’s a light pink that looks true to nature, not at all fluorescent as so many of the new liqueurs are. But, as I suspected it would be, it was candy sweet. However, the taste was interesting. It seemed I could taste the peach more than anything else though. I decided to chill it as I figured that would be a more likely way to serve it.

I put my little cordial glass in the freezer to chill it down. About 20 minutes later I checked on it and it was slush! Due to it’s low alcohol content, only 18%, keeping it at freezing temperatures for too long will result in a solid mass. I stirred it a bit to melt it back down and sipped again. Still a bit too sweet. So on to test two.

I packed up my bottle of Lichido and made my way to the Zig Zag Cafe, where I planned to meet R. My plan was for R to taste and also to have Ben, Casey or both, (Zig Zag bartenders extraordinaire) give it a shot and to mix me up a little cocktail made with Lichido. Ben was working that night so he was elected!

First, the taste test. R agreed with my analysis, just a bit too sweet for her, but Ben mentioned that with as subtle a taste as lychee is, you’d need to either add sugar or salt to really bring out the taste. Okay, I buy that but still I was having a hard time picturing it in a cocktail that I would enjoy.

Side note: Prior to this testing I had reviewed the Lichido site to see what sort of cocktails they recommended. To my disappointment, most recipes on their site simply take something tried and true (like a Mojito) and either add Lichido to it (the Lichido Mojito) or substitute Lichido for the normal liquor.

I asked Ben what he’d do with it in a cocktail. He thought for just a moment and then mixed me a drink. The drink he created was good! But the Lichido was fairly subtle. I asked him to add a bit more but he was right to begin with - the additional amount increased the flavor but also the sugar. It was okay but the first version was much better.

My take away from all of this, is that while Lichido can bring a new and interesting element to a cocktail it really should only be used in a very subtle manner. The amounts recommended by the Lichido people in their onsite recipes would be way too sweet - wake up in the morning with a pounding-head-hangover sweet.

Honestly, I probably will not buy this when it becomes available in Washington. On the other hand I gifted my bottle to Ben as a thank you for his help and he was excited to get it. So I guess, in the hands of a professional it can be used to subtly enhance a nice cocktail and is another tool in the liqueur arsenal.

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Here’s the recipe Ben came up with - I made up the corny name…

Benido

• 1/4 oz Lichido
• 1/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
• 1 1/2 - 2 oz Gin

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and strain into a martini glass.

Final note: When spell checking this post, my spell checker kept suggesting that I change Lichido to Libido. Interesting…