The Origins of our own Limongino and Orangino

There is a unique magic in the clink of a chilled glass, the way a vibrant liquid catches the light, a whiff that promises something. 

A refined liqueur rolls into one a distillation of history, alchemy and cookery! This story stretches from ancient apothecaries to the cloisters of medieval monks; a tale rewritten by the global spread of a single, transformative ingredient: sugar. A little is lovely!!

Time for a bit of navel-gazing and unravel the string-ball of history that leads us to the origins of our own Limongino and Orangino. 

It can be said the story of any great spirit begins with its name. The word "liqueur" holds the very secret of its creation - a direct descendant of the Latin verb liquifacere, which means "to make liquid," "to dissolve," or "to melt". It entered the English language via French around the 1740s, is no coincidence; it is a perfect technical description of the process of making some! It is the art of dissolving the essential flavours, aromas and colours of fruits, herbs, spices, nuts or flowers into a spirit. The name is its recipe.

But don’t be befuddled, there is a distinction between "liqueur" and "liquor". Both spring from the Old French licor and the Latin liquorem, meaning simply "a liquid" or "fluid". Liquor was adopted into English around the 13th century, where it was used as a general term for any liquid substance.

For centuries, this was enough. But as distilling evolved, spirits that were not just distilled, but intentionally flavoured and crucially, sweetened, appeared. By the 18th century, as these lovelies gained popularity, liquor was not enough. The English language nicked the French form, "liqueur," to give this new category its own distinction!

The emergence of this new word flagged a new category of beverage had arrived; defined by its alcoholic strength, intricate art of flavouring and sweetening. Liquor shrunk to unsweetened distilled spirits. Liqueur became the name of its more complex, sweetened and flavourful cousin. Who’d have thought it!

That said, long before they were sipped for pleasure, liqueurs were administered for preservation of health and of life itself. The fundamental practice of infusing alcohol with botanicals is ancient, with its roots deep in early Egypt and Mesopotamia. This tradition was carried on by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who created their own botanical blends as tonics and remedies. The influential Greek physician (and there is always one!) Dioscorides, wrote about extensive use of herbal extracts in alcoholic solutions, even describing sugar as a form of medicine to be dissolved in water for ailments of the stomach and kidneys. (He didn’t write about diabetes!) These weren’t for enjoyment; they were the balms, crèmes and elixirs of the ancient world, prescribed by physicians and prepared by apothecaries.

From this bunch the art of the liqueur began to form, however, within the stone walls of Europe's medieval monasteries. In the wake of the Black Death, Europe was gripped by a profound need for healing and a lot of hope. In this climate of societal trauma monks, who were the primary custodians of knowledge, literacy and nascent science, took the helm. They had access to ancient medical texts from the Greek, Roman and Arab worlds, and herb gardens at their disposal. They experimented with distillation with the goal to create an elixir vitae, an "elixir of long life" to ward off illness and conquer mortality. Billionaires are still at it today!

This wasn’t just a scientific pursuit; it was a deep-seated spiritual and psychological response to an age defined by death. The monastery became a laboratory, a crucible where faith, alchemy and botany combined in the search for a divine cure. This fervent period of experimentation gave birth to some of the world's most iconic and mysterious liqueurs, many of whose recipes remain guarded to this day.

• Chartreuse: In 1605, a mysterious manuscript containing the formula for an "elixir of long life" was delivered to the Carthusian monks near Paris. The recipe was fantastically complex, said to contain over 130 different herbs, spices and flowers. For over a century, the monks worked to decipher and perfect the formula, eventually producing the potent herbal liqueur known today as Chartreuse. Gorgeous story at least.

• Bénédictine: Bénédictine D.O.M., was first concocted in 1510 by the Bénédictine monk Dom Bernardo Vincelli at the Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy, France. Again a kitchen-sink of a job - a blend of 27 plants and spices, intended as a restorative tonic. Probably needed to recover after all that blending.

These early monastic creations were striking and often intensely bitter. A direct result of their high concentration of medicinal roots, barks and herbs. To make them palatable, the monks used the primary sweetener available to them: honey. Refined sugar was still an extraordinary rarity. This use of honey to balance bitterness was a crucial first step, setting the stage for the revolutionary change that was to come.

For most of European history, sugar was a substance of myth and medicine. Known to the ancient Romans as sakcharon, it was imported at great expense from India and Arabia, prescribed by physicians in minuscule doses and described as "brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt". During the Middle Ages, it was classified as a "fine spice," its price on par with exotics like nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Crusaders returning from the Holy Land brought back tales of this wondrous "sweet salt", and for centuries, Venetian merchants controlled its flow into Europe, making it a powerful symbol of wealth and status. At aristocratic feasts, it was an artistic medium, sculpted into elaborate centerpieces called subtleties that could convey political allegiances or sly rebukes.

The 16th and 17th centuries changed the world, and the world of liqueurs, forever. The Age of Discovery led to European colonisation of the New World, where the climate was perfectly suited for growing sugarcane. Vast plantations sprung up across the Caribbean, Brazil and South America, tragically fueled by the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. As industrial-scale production ramped up, the price of sugar in Europe plummeted. By the 18th century, sugar had completed its journey from a rare medicine for kings to a staple commodity for all levels of society.

This "sugar boom" was the single greatest catalyst in the history of the liqueur, marking the definitive transition from medicine to recreation. The impact was profound and multifaceted:

• While monks had used honey to make their bitter herbal remedies tolerable, the widespread availability of sugar allowed producers to pursue an entirely new goal. The objective shifted from merely masking bitterness to creating intentionally delicious, balanced and pleasurable beverages. Sweetness was no longer a functional afterthought; it was a core component of the flavour profile.

• With their newfound appeal, liqueurs migrated from the apothecary's shelf to the gilded dining rooms of the aristocracy. They became a fashionable indulgence, served as an aperitif to stimulate the appetite, a digestif to aid a meal's conclusion or as a decadent accompaniment to dessert.

• This era saw the creation of liqueurs designed from their inception for enjoyment. The 17th century gave us Amaretto and the first orange liqueurs from the island of Curaçao. The momentum continued, and the 19th century became a golden age, producing timeless French classics like Cointreau, Grand Marnier, and the Scotch-based Drambuie. The journey from a "quackery tincture to a bar vanguard" was complete.

The Ancestry of Citrus Liqueurs

As sugar made liqueurs sweet, global exploration made them flavourful, introducing a world of exotic fruits to European distillers. Among the most beloved were the lemon and the orange, each giving rise to its own iconic liqueur tradition.

The true birthplace of Limoncello is a mystery, a subject of passionate local pride and debate along Italy's stunning Amalfi Coast. The sun-drenched towns of Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri each say they did it first. Legends abound, attributing the zesty liqueur to medieval monks passing time between prayers, fishermen warming themselves against the morning chill or even sailors drinking it to ward off scurvy. In fact, it is difficult to find a part of this world that didn’t invent it…

The most verifiable history, acknowledged by the Italian Federation of Wine and Liquor Producers, is more recent. It points to a woman named Maria Antonia Farace, who ran a small guesthouse on the island of Capri in the early 1900s. She tended a magnificent garden of lemons and oranges and created her own special lemon liqueur to serve to her guests. The recipe remained a local treasure until 1988, when her grandson, Massimo Canale, registered a trademark for his nonna's creation, officially launching Limoncello onto the world stage.

The soul of a true Limoncello lies in the quality of its lemons. Traditionally, it is made with specific, intensely aromatic varieties like the Femminello St. Teresa from the Sorrento Peninsula or the thick-skinned Sfusato lemon from the Amalfi Coast. The classic method is: only the zest, carefully removed to avoid the bitter white pith, then steeped in neutral spirit. After the fragrant essential oils are extracted, the liquid is sweetened with a simple sugar syrup to create the iconic, velvety and bittersweet spirit.

The story of orange liqueur begins with a happy accident of agriculture. In the 16th century, Spanish settlers tried to cultivate their sweet Valencia oranges on the Dutch-controlled Caribbean island of Curaçao. The arid soil and relentless sun were not to the oranges' liking, and over time they mutated into a new variety: the Laraha orange, a bitter, inedible fruit whose groves were abandoned. At some point, an unknown islander discovered that while the fruit's flesh was unpalatable, its sun-dried peels were incredibly fragrant. Seeing an opportunity, Dutch colonists in the 17th century began steeping these aromatic peels in alcohol. The result was Curaçao, the world's first orange liqueur and the progenitor of an entire category.

This Dutch invention inspired a wave of refinement in 19th-century France, leading to a creative rivalry that defined the modern orange liqueur. This period was not simply about making a product; it was about perfecting a style and building a brand. This "arms race" of refinement gave us two of the most famous names in the spirits world:

• Cointreau and the "Triple Sec" Style: In Angers, France, the Cointreau family of confectioners began distilling in 1849. Édouard Cointreau, responding to a growing fascination with the then-exotic orange, sought to create a new style of liqueur. He wanted something less sweet and more intensely aromatic than the Dutch Curaçaos. After years of experimentation, he perfected his recipe in 1875: a crystal-clear spirit made by distilling a blend of sweet and bitter orange peels in a neutral alcohol base derived from sugar beets. He called his creation "Triple Sec," with "sec" being French for "dry," to highlight its less-sugary profile. Cointreau established the benchmark for a clean, crisp and versatile orange liqueur.

• Just five years later, in 1880, Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle took a different path. He was part of a family known for producing fine Cognac, and he envisioned a richer, more luxurious style of orange liqueur. Instead of a neutral spirit, he used his family's barrel-aged French Cognac. He infused this with the essence of bitter Caribbean oranges, creating a complex, amber-hued liqueur with notes of vanilla and oak from his Cognac. Originally named "Curaçao Marnier," its name was changed at the suggestion of the famed hotelier César Ritz, who declared the magnificent creation deserved a grander name: Grand Marnier.

The near-simultaneous emergence of these two titans was the dawn of the modern branded liqueur. They were not just making "orange liqueur"; they were strategically crafting distinct identities to capture a new, discerning market. Cointreau positioned itself as the pure, versatile spirit essential for cocktails, while Grand Marnier became the rich, complex sipping liqueur, a symbol of opulent luxury.

Naturally, we wanted to take it to the final step! To understand how we create our liqueurs at English Spirit, one must first appreciate the traditional tools of the distiller's art. For centuries, flavour has been captured through a handful of core techniques:

• Maceration & Infusion: This is the simplest and most ancient method, akin to brewing a giant cup of tea. Flavouring agents like fruits or herbs are steeped in a spirit, which slowly leaches out their flavours, aromas and colours. It is a gentle process, ideal for delicate ingredients.

• Percolation: This method works much like a coffee percolator. The spirit is repeatedly pumped or dripped over a basket of botanicals, extracting flavour as it passes through.

• Distillation: For a purer, more intense aromatic profile, botanicals can be placed directly into the still with the spirit, which is then re-distilled. The heat vaporizes the alcohol along with the volatile aroma compounds, which are then condensed back into a highly flavourful liquid. This process, however, strips all colour from the final spirit, but crucially allows you to select what you want to keep and disregard to rest.

At English Spirit, we honour these traditions while embracing the best of modern technology to push the boundaries of flavour extraction. Our secret weapon is a cutting-edge technique that represents a true 21st-century evolution of the craft: sous vide distillation. This French culinary method, meaning "under vacuum," involves sealing our spirit with fresh botanicals in an airtight bag and gently heating it in a precisely controlled water bath. This allows us to use the gentle heat of cooking to unlock deep, rich and complex flavours from the ingredients. Because the process happens in a sealed vacuum, no alcohol or delicate aromas can evaporate and be lost. It gives us the deep extraction of heating with the gentle preservation of a cold infusion—the best of all worlds.

Our Limongino is The English Answer to an Italian Classic

Our Limongino is not an attempt to copy the Italian classic, but a deliberate and thoughtful reinterpretation; a respectful dialogue with tradition. Every element is designed to create a liqueur of unparalleled freshness and complexity.

• The Gin Foundation: The first and most fundamental difference is our choice of base spirit. Where traditional Limoncello uses a neutral vodka or grain alcohol, we use our own small-batch, scratch-distilled Dr. J's Gin. This is not a blank canvas; our gin provides its own subtle backbone of botanical notes that beautifully intertwine with the vibrant lemon.

• The Whole-Fruit Philosophy: We believe in honouring the fruit in its entirety. While the Italian tradition often uses only the zest, we use the whole lemon. We spent years finding lemons with the perfect ratio of flavourful zest, crisp pith and mouthwateringly zingy flesh. By using the entire fruit, we capture a complete and authentic character that is impossible to achieve from the peel alone. The result is what our tasting notes describe as a "vibrant symphony of fresh lemon juice zest and zing".

• A Modern Three-Step Process: We layer flavour using a unique combination of old and new. The lemons are subjected to a trinity of techniques: infusion, distillation and our signature sous vide slow-cooking, to capture and lock in every possible nuance of their bright character.

• A Lick of English Sugar: Finally, the spirit is balanced with just a "lick of English sugar". Our goal is not overwhelming sweetness, but perfect harmony. The final product is zesty, juicy and refreshingly tart, "less like traditional limoncello and more akin to the best cloudy lemonade you can remember".

If our Limongino is a dialogue with history, our Orangino is a testament to the joy of modern creativity. It is our own original contribution to the long and storied history of orange liqueurs.

• The foundation is our super-refreshing, Caribbean-style gin, which we infuse with the bright, sweet flavour of fresh oranges. But then we add the twist that makes Orangino truly special: a measure of fresh red bell pepper.

• This addition might sound strange, but the effect is magical. The red pepper doesn't impart a savoury, vegetable taste. Instead, its crisp, clean, almost vegetal brightness cuts straight through the sweetness of the orange, amplifying its natural zing and creating a mouth-watering, wonderfully complex flavour profile that is utterly unique. It is a perfect example of how the most unexpected ingredients can create the most perfect harmony.

Limongino argues for a more complete, authentic and complex nod to a beloved classic. Orangino is for the thrill of bold, modern innovation. The use of our own gin base grounds them in a distinctly English distilling identity; the whole-fruit philosophy is our commitment to authenticity; the sous vide method is our claim of technical superiority and our restrained use of sugar is a direct reflection of a modern palate, moving beyond the "sweet revolution" of the past into an era of the precise balance

The journey of the liqueur is an epic one. From a monk's bitter medicinal brew, born from a desperate hope for immortality in a world ravaged by plague. With the arrival of sugar, it transforms into a symbol of aristocratic power and pleasure, a luxury enjoyed in the glittering courts of Europe by the so so so few. But by the 19th century, it became an essential tool for the bartender, the vibrant soul of the burgeoning cocktail culture. And today, it has become a canvas for distillers to express their passion and creativity.

A bottle of English Spirit Limongino or Orangino is the culmination of this incredible story. It offers far more than just a delicious drink. It is a taste of history, distilled through a modern English lens with an unwavering respect for the true character of the fruit. Let’s have a sip!

Here are a few simple serves:

• The Purest Form: For both Limongino and Orangino, the best way to appreciate their full complexity is to serve them chilled in a fridge door at 6 celsius, neat or over a single large cube of ice.

• Instant Celebration: Add a generous splash of either liqueur to a glass of chilled prosecco or champagne for a simple, elegant spritz.

• Limongino Refresher: For a long, cooling drink, pour a measure of Limongino over ice, top with cloudy lemonade or soda water and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint, basil or tarragon.

• Orangino & Spice: The bright notes of Orangino pair beautifully with spice. Serve it long with a good quality ginger ale or soda water, plenty of ice and a fragrant sprig of lemon thyme.

Come on, it's summer, sip and chat to one another!

My best,

Dr J.