...Maison St. Germain, that is. It seems like Texas is finally getting something hot that is not the weather. Okay, I admit that "hot" is perhaps an exaggeration, since the non-Texas media outlets blew their load over St. Germain last year, but this is a major thrill for us Third Coast cocktail junkies.

St. Germain, a French-made elderflower liqueur, was released (I believe) in early 2007 in a number of markets, and was all the rage at Tales of the Cocktail and in news outlets from the NY Times to Out. Tipsy and I first got a taste of it at Tales, and he was so kind as to import several bottles for my birthday last fall. Other than that, it was a discovery that we couldn't share. I couldn't write a story about it, because it was not for sale in Texas. I couldn't tell friends about it, because they would want to come drink up my stash (some did anyway). Until now...

On Saturday evening Tipsy and I were tending bar at a party, and I sent him to the store to pick up an extra bottle of Paula's Texas Orange since we prematurely blew through the bottle we had brought (at this point astute observers will notice this bizarre combination of events: running out of a bottle of liquor while it was still early enough to buy more, that is by 9pm CST. Let me explain that we were pouring drinks for a mature audience--my mother was in fact a guest; our own festivities generally start well after the liquor store has closed). So he comes back with the PTO and a fantasy in a bottle, by which I mean a bottle of St. Germain. At first I thought he had violated our precious stash from the house, but before I could make any indelicate exclamations, he shouts, "It's Here!!" It was a moment that nobody in the room could understand or appreciate, but it was incredible nonetheless. We proceeded to pour a bottle's worth of St. Germain Cocktails, which are the simple signature drink of the spirit:

St. Germain Cocktail (from the promotional materials):
2 oz Dry White Wine* or Champagne**
2 oz St-Germain
2 oz Soda Water
Method: Stir ingredients in a tall ice-filled Collins glass, mixing completely. Think of Paris circa 1947. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Variation: Think of Sartre circa 1947. Be the lemon twist
* Preferably Sauvignon Blanc
**Sparkling Wine or Prosecco

At Tales we attended a seminar given by Robert Cooper, who is the developer and owner of the product. Cooper's presentation was excellent, if a bit over-the-top at times. There is, for one, the story of how the product is created, which involves old French dudes (maybe Swiss), or bohemiens, peddling bicycles in the mountains during the few brief Spring days when the flowers are in full bloom. A number of people have commented on the dubious likelihood of this foundational story/myth, but that is not my point here. Rather, I think it is remarkable that Cooper and crew have put so much effort into developing not just the product, but also the materials that accompany it. The souvenir of the seminar was not, unfortunately, 750ml of St-Germain, but instead we walked away with perhaps the sexiest press kit ever, including card-stock reprints of articles about the product, a luxuriously produced book about production and mixing suggestions, and a St-Germain DVD. It is all very exciting for a low budget cocktalian such as myself. I have never seen a product come out as an "instant classic." His promotional materials are geared toward having this product hit the market as if it had been a staple of the bar since time immemorial. This is in stark contrast to a number of other liquor promotions I have experienced, for example: A Johnnie Walker promotion for their "Latin-American Initiative," when they decided they didn't want to miss out on all that money from Hispanic community in Houston, so they rented a nice villa, hired mariachis, had door men dressed like Johnnie Walker, giant ice scuptures in the same shape, flambe carts making JW bananas "foster", all very classy and yet nonetheless tacky--what my friend Daniel calls "High Tack." A better example is an event I attended for Bacardi Ciclon, also in Houston, for which they rented a cheesy night club, decorated it like a M.A.S.H.-theme frat party, and had hot "nurses" walking around in bikinis administering shots of Ciclon (Bacardi's "tequila-infused" rum, whatever that means); there was also a nurse's station where you could get an airbrushed tattoo of the Bacardi bat. All of this is a roundabout way of saying that St-Germain is one of those rare new liquor products that has positioned itself at the top of the shelf, and deserves it, unlike, for example, a million and one high-end vodkas that amount to nothing more than an empty promise.