La Fraise d’Amour

I’d been ogling this unusual concoction from Charles H. Baker, Jr’s The Gentleman’s Companion for quite some time. It’s obviously different from most any cocktail I can bring to mind, and the ingredient that makes it so different — fresh-pressed strawberry juice — is what made it so inviting.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to get strawberries into drinks — the blasted industrial-scale strawberry daiquiris / margaritas that are little more than alcopops with an extra touch of antioxidants, and the assorted mojito-like drinks in which all manners of fruit have been muddled — but this one, calling for the strained juice of strawberries and pairing it with the deep, luscious taste of cognac, seemed very promising. With spring kicking into high gear this past week, and with fresh strawberries appearing in the market, I thought of this long-delayed drink, and finally put one together.

Here’s what Baker has to say:

Another spring, it was in 1926, we sat out under the trees and dined and danced and discussed matters that were old when Marie Antoinette rode to the guillotine in her tragic tumbril, or when du Barry passed in her royal carriage. This Fraise d’Amour, my dear friends, is not a woman’s drink in the usual concept of the word; but, on occasion, can be very apt to a charming lady. It is a deceiver; mild-tasting, insidious, slow to act, but thorough at the last!

La Fraise d’Amour

  • 2 ounces cognac
  • 1 ounce fresh-pressed ripe strawberry juice, strained
  • 2 dashes maraschino
  • 1 dash orange bitters

Stir without ice, then pour into a thin goblet filled with shaved ice. Stir once and garnish “with 1 dead-ripe strawberry teed up in the precise center,” Baker says.

I really had such high hopes for this drink — I was imagining that vivacious taste of late spring you get when you taste the season’s first strawberries, and pictured the fat, voluptuous taste of the cognac coming alive with the fertile natural sweetness of the berries.

It was close, oh, it was close — but ultimately, while the flavor was definitely good, it fell just slightly flat. The strawberries just couldn’t kick up enough flavor to make their presence felt in any significant way (and my berries were no schlubs — I sampled plenty on the side to make sure). Yes, there was the lush cognac, and yes, there was some strawberry flavor — but it was so restrained, the flavors faded very quickly. I could have cheated and added some strawberry syrup to get the kind of fruity vavoom I was seeking, but that would have demolished my whole idea of having the fresh berry flavor wash over me. I also could have pressed more berry juice, though it takes a surprising number of berries to squeeze out an ounce of juice, and I was running low by that point.

I may still try this again as we get closer to summer, but only with some berries that are so ripe and aromatic that you can smell them from across the room, and so rich and red that you can see them in the dark. For a drink that didn’t quite work out, this one still gave some good play.

4 Responses to La Fraise d’Amour

  1. Damn you Clarke!!! I was eyeing that very same recipe today. I guess thanks are in order for doing some of the grunt work for me. Methinks the sauce pan will have to come out and reduce, reduce, reduce.

  2. I too have this recipe scribbled in my notebook. I was thinking the same thing, reduce! What method did you use to get your juice from the berries?

  3. Reduce, reduce, repeat. Good idea. If I can ever keep a full batch of berries away from my kids long enough to cook up a batch of juice, I’ll give it a spin.

    For the juice, I just muddled the berries to a pulp and then pressed the juice through a fine-mesh strainer. If I had a chinoise, I would have gone that route, but as it was I was improvising with the tools at hand.

  4. When the local strawberries finally pop up in New England we find a great use for them at the restaurant where I work. That seventies staple: the strawberry daiquiri.

    It’s not as scary as it sounds. No headach inducing slush here.

    We hull and halve ten quarts of berries. These are covered with hot (not scalding) water, sugar and high proof grain spirits (just enough to discourage spoilage).

    After resting in the walk-in for a week, we puree the berries and pour the liquid over them. This puree/ liquid mixture is passed through a chinois. The resulting liquid should be a translucent red with very little sediment. If it it not pass through a cheesecloth-lined chinois.

    Use this liquid as a sugar substitute in your favorite daiquiri recipe, shake the hell out of it, and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

    Enjoy!

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