This beautiful orange liqueur is our go-to for summer cocktails

This May, our incredible Gin of the Month hails from the sun-kissed boulevards of Monaco - but when the distillery first opened, it wasn’t to produce gin at all!

In fact, it was the citrus trees lining the streets of Monte Carlo that first inspired the team at La Distillerie de Monaco to attempt to bottle the spirit of the country using Monaco’s delicious oranges. The result was the stunning L’Orangerie Liqueur.

To make this unique liqueur, each orange is picked by hand, washed and peeled at the distillery, and then prepared according to a closely guarded recipe. The result is a golden liquid that brings the light-splashed citrus trees of the Mediterranean to life in the glass, and ties the history of Monaco’s orange trade to the modern day.

The sky is the limit with this bottled sunshine: mix it up in a delicious gin cocktail or simply enjoy chilled over ice!

Here at Craft Gin Club, we love using the L’Orangerie liqueur in La Condamine, a cocktail recipe that was created especially to showcase the ingredient by the legendary Le Bar Americain in Monaco’s glamorous city of Monte Carlo.

You can now bring a little touch of Mediterranean luxury to your homemade cocktails with the recipe below!

First get a shaker with no ice and add the orange liqueur, gin, lemon juice, cranberry juice, thyme syrup, a sprig of rosemary and the egg white. Shake without ice to get the egg white nice and frothy (called a dry shake) then add ice and shake again until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass with ice, and garnish with an orange zest and a sprig of rosemary.

*To make thyme syrup: Mix 4 sprigs of thyme with 250ml of water and 250g of sugar. Simmer gently until the sugar as combined and thickened. Remove the herbs and allow to completely cool before use.