1970’s Grand Marnier “Cordon Rouge” 1 Litre InOrginal Presentation BoxLiqueur

Grand Marnier—or “GrandMa,” as some cocktail geeks gleefully shorthand it—remains one of the classics.

Although it's Cognac-based, it's a versatile match for other spirits, too. The liqueur is extremely aromatic, with lots of sweet and bitter orange notes exploding out of the glass. Look for a warm, honeyed flavor and a nice burst of orange peel and spicy cinnamon and ginger on the long finish.

Grand Marnier is a popular orange liqueur made in France from a blend of French cognac and bitter orange liqueur. That familiar bottle that adorns bars worldwide is technically called Cordon Rouge, though it's most often simply called Grand Marnier. It is the best-known French liqueur on the market and among the top choices for orange liqueurs in the world. Grand Marnier is a brilliant cocktail ingredient and it offers a smooth citrus taste when drunk on its own.

Originally named Curaçao Marnier, the name was changed to Grand Marnier due to a suggestion by César Ritz, founder of the Ritz Hotel because it was a "grand" liqueur. The now-famous expression is also called Cordon Rouge and its bottle was designed to look like a traditional cognac still adorned with a red wax seal and red ribbon. Today, Grand Marnier is owned by the Campari Group.

At the most basic, Grand Marnier is a cognac-based liqueur flavored with a bitter orange distillate. The production process is more complicated. The cognac used in the blend is made from Ugni Blanc grapes grown in the Cognac region of France. It is double-distilled in copper pot stills and aged in oak casks before blending and being sent to Grand Marnier.

A separate process creates the orange distillate. The flavor comes from sun-dried bitter orange (Citrus bigaradia) peels which are harvested while green to capture the most intense flavor essences. They're then macerated into neutral alcohol at Grand Marnier's Château de Bourg-Charente distillery in France and slowly distilled.

The two spirits are then blended together by Grand Marnier's master blender: 51 percent cognac and 49 percent orange liqueur. It is bottled at a full 40 percent alcohol by volume (ABV, 80 proof), making the liqueur as strong as most brandy, whiskey, and other base distilled spirits.