A brief hitory of liqueur
The discovery of distillation is ascribed to a certain Arnaud de Villeneuve, a physician to the pope, a professor of medicine, an alchemist and a monk, who lived during the late thirteenth century.
In truth he discovered nothing. As a youth, Arnaud had studied at Muslim Cordova, in Spain, and while there, he would have read the works of Zosime the Panapolitan who lived and worked in the delta of the Nile in the third century AD. Among others, this Greek, considered by many to be the father of alchemy, wrote a treatise on -the art of distillation-, wherein he described the whole process of distillation as practised by the ancient Egyptians for, oh, the last few millenia. So Arnaud, in fact discovered nothing, but merely introduced the art of distillation into Europe.
Actually, it is now well-known that the Chinese were already using crude distillation methods to produce fortified spirits from fermented rice wine as early as 800 BC. Egyptians and Greeks were distilling grape wine in 400 BC. (Aristotle wrote of using distillation to produce fresh water from seawater). At a push, one could say that the first liqueurs were combinations of wine, growing abundantly in Greece, with honey and fruits. Hippocrates was one of these early Greeks, adding cinnamon to fermented honey, so that even today a Mead (honey wine) with added fruit or spices is called a 'Hippocras'. It was still fashionable to drink Hippocras during the reign of Louis XIV. The Arabs are known to have used the technique, but the earliest reference to distillation in Europe was associated with alchemists and monks (Arnaud) in the early thirteenth century.
During the time of the alchemists, it was thought that everything in the world was composed of four "essences": earth, fire, air and water. Everything was considered to be mixtures of some or all of these four. Our friend Arnaud was so impressed by the incredible properties of this new fiery liquid he had created, that he called it the fifth essence: 'la quinte essence'; hence the derivation of our English word: quintessence, meaning the 'heart' or the 'core'. It was the firm belief of Raymond Lully, a student of de Villeneuve's, and also a monk, that so vital and life restoring were these waters, that their production was a divinely inspired gift from Heaven.
Being an alchemist, and therefore inquisitive, he was impressed by this clear and limpid liquid, like rainwater, that had extraordinary properties. When he applied it, soaked on a cloth to open sores and wounds, they miraculously healed. So taken was he by the virtues of this liquid that he prescribed that the body be rubbed daily with it and called it "eau-de-vie" - the water of life.
Now, during and after the Dark Ages, it was only in the monasteries where any shred of civilization and knowledge survived. It was the monks who took on the role of savior of the body as well as the soul. As the alchemists were interested in transmuting base metal into gold, the monks were interested in finding the elixir of eternal life, which, it was thought, the Good Lord had hidden on earth. In their gardens they grew all manner of herbs, spices, weeds, etc., reputed from ancient times to have medicinal properties. At this time, medicine consisted of (among other more sanguine practices) the use of herbs and flowers, bark and roots applied as poultices or drunk as teas totally without regard to taste. The group that had the most "free" time to experiment along these lines, were the various orders of monks.
During these thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, physicians believed that herb liqueurs could treat and/or prevent illnesses. Probably in most cases they had some value for even today some tonics and similar extracts, such as cough syrup, have alcoholic bases. Certainly, these potions were not developed to please the palate but to cure some ill. These elixirs and extracts were almost always bitter, sour, or disagreeable to swallow in some way. However, they were the state of the art in curative medications.
As mentioned above, the newly discovered 'eau-de-vie' was thought to have magical curative powers. It did not take long before the two concepts were married, producing alcoholic elixirs (the monks and alchemists had discovered that the medicinal properties of the various Herbs, Spices, Fruit and Bark were preserved longer when infused into alcohol instead of water) but of equally horrible taste (at least it made you feel good temporarily). Remember also that distillation was not the fine art it is today, but more closely resembled moonshine: rotgut of uneven and typically unpleasant taste.
What was needed to make these bitter concoctions more palatable were sweeteners and aromatic spices like cinnamon. The problem was that both of these were in very short supply. Cane sugar was not yet known of - honey was the only sweetener. Spices, such as black pepper, arriving via caravans from the Orient, and by ship from the Middle East, were exorbitantly priced, worth their weight in gold, and incidentally, made the principality of Venice an economic and military powerhouse of its time - its navy controlled the commerce of the Mediterranean.
Finding a cheap source of spices and cutting out the Muslim middle-men was critical for our History of Liqueurs. Portugal and Spain; France and England all set out to circumvent the usury imposed by the caravanserai, and, in the process discovered the motherlode. India and Indonesia were reached. America and the West Indies were colonized and soon a flood of new and amazing spices and herbs were available for our monks and apothecaries and at a reasonable price. Cheap sugar from sugar cane, coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, mace, nutmeg, quinine, vanilla. A cornucopia to add new flavors to old recipes.
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