Ferrand Yuzu Late Harvest Dry Curaçao

Product of: France

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Ferrand Dry Curaçao Yuzu Late Harvest is a dry curaçao-style orange liqueur designed to bring a bright, expressive citrus lift to cocktails.

background story
This liqueur began as a very limited-edition gift. In July 2022, Maison Ferrand released Ferrand Dry Curaçao Yuzu Late Harvest in honour of the 20th anniversary of Tales of the Cocktail, with just 900 bottles made and the very first of them given to the Tales CAPs - the Cocktail Apprentice Programme, the international peer-mentorship group of up-and-coming bartenders who volunteer through that famously punishing week in New Orleans. A small number of additional bottles were distributed to a handful of New Orleans retailers during Tales, with proceeds funding two scholarships for the BAR 5-Day certification programme.

Why yuzu
Yuzu is a hugely aromatic Japanese citrus with thick, knobbly skin that starts green and turns yellow as it ripens. Its aroma sits somewhere between lemon, lime, and grapefruit, with a faint spiciness and an almost waxy note. In other words, it is a fruit whose entire value is in the peel and its oils - which is exactly what a curaçao is built to exploit.

The idea was to showcase yuzu's aromatics in a sophisticated 19th-century-style liqueur. This led to a search for the best yuzu.

L'Agrumiste
The search ended at L'Agrumiste, a Moroccan citrus estate and one of the most remarkable orchards in the Mediterranean - a biodiverse operation growing more than 250 exotic fruit varieties, weeded by hand, with certain areas left deliberately untouched to encourage the proliferation of species, and working towards full organic certification. It sits on land that has been growing citrus for thousands of years. The Mediterranean climate - mild winters, abundant summer sun, and irrigation gives the fruit an intensity that yuzu grown elsewhere struggles to match.

Late harvest
Yuzu is normally hand-picked in the autumn. For this liqueur, Ferrand leaves the fruit hanging on the tree well past its peak maturity and harvests it late, into the winter. By then it has lost a good deal of its juice, and everything that is left is concentrated: sweeter, rounder, denser in aroma, with the pastry and marzipan notes that marry so well with a cognac base. It is the same principle as a late-harvest wine, applied to a fruit almost nobody uses that way. It is also a nerve-racking way to farm, since every extra week on the tree is another week that something can go wrong.

How it is made
The whole yuzu fruit, not just the peel, is macerated in grape spirit for a week, then slowly distilled in Ferrand's alembic stills. That distillate is married with a touch of yuzu infusion, a hint of bourbon vanilla, brandy and Ferrand Cognac, alongside the classic curaçao components of bitter Curaçao orange peel, sweet orange and lemon, then rested in oak so the whole thing knits together.

Review and Tasting

Sampled on 31/08/2026

Appearance:

Clear, pale orange-yellow.

Aroma:

Zesty yuzu and orange, with delicate cream-of-soda vanilla, and floral rose and geranium.

Taste:

Intense bright zesty and juicy yuzu with bitter orange, rich vanilla and creamy milk-chocolate with faint almond and toffee.

Aftertaste:

Long lingering zesty citrus with burnt orange oils and gentle warm spice.

Overall:

Intensely favoured with bright, zesty freshness. Ferrand Yuzu Late Harvest Dry Curaçao can be used to add yuzu flavours to new cocktails or to reimagine established cocktails usually made with triple sec.