| Word | Lillet |
||||||||
| How Do You Say "Lillet"? | lillet |
||||||||
| Audio Examples and Explanations |
|
||||||||
| What is "Lillet"? | Lillet is an apéritif made from a blend of Bordeaux wines, and citrus liqueurs, as well as the liqueur of a bark which contains quinine, which gives it a bitter edge. The pronunciation of ‘Lillet’ is somewhat counter-intuitive if you have studied some French, because you expect it to sound like ‘lee/yay’. In French, a ‘ll’ in the middle of a word normally sounds like a ‘y’. The company is quite adamant that the pronunciation is ‘lee/leh’ and even changed the spelling IN FRANCE at one time to one ‘l’ – ‘lilet’, until everyone got the message, when they changed it back again. Make sure you get the ‘i’ right, because if you fudge it, it can sound like ‘le lait‘, which means ‘the milk’ in French. The history of LilletLillet was created in 1872 in the village of Podensac in Bordeaux by brothers Paul and Raymond Lillet. The original was made with a dry white wine (using the grapes favored in the making of the sweet Sauternes. Podensac is a stone’s throw away from the Sauternes village). It is flavored with citrus liqueurs which include sweet orange, green orange, and bitter orange, with a dash of quinine which is obtained from cinchona bark from Peru. This original formulation fell under the category of ‘quinquina’ drinks. Quinquina is the French word for the cinchona bark from which the quinine is obtained. (Dubonnet is another example of a ‘quinquina’). The French pronunciation of quinquina (ka~/kee/nah) makes the original name ‘Kina Lillet’ more understandable. After the 1930′s, the company seems to have dropped the ‘Kina’ from the name, although Kina Lillet continued to be referred to as such, most notably by James Bond Fleming’s 1953 book ‘Casino Royale’. In 1986, the company reformulated the drink to reduce the quinine and make it less bitter. The sugar was also reduced. The original ‘Kina Lillet’ no longer exists, although there is a little known drink called ‘Reserve de Lillet Blanc’ which lies somewhere between the original Lillet and today’s formulation. There are now 3 types of Lillet:
How to serve LilletLillet is most often served as an apéritif, before meals. The most famous Lillet cocktail is ‘The Vesper‘ invented by James Bond in Casino Royale which is made with gin, vodka and Kina Lillet, but there are many others to try.
There are some inventive recipes using Lillet: Epicurious has a recipe for Lillet Marshmallows, and the inimitable Heidi Swanson from 101cookbooks.com has a recipe for Lillet Buttermilk Shakes, which sound divine.
|
||||||||
| Branded? | YES | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
Copy & paste this HTML into your blog or website: |
|||||||||
How do you say "Lillet" in French?
Subscribe to Comments
Add a Comment
Latest from the Blog
Newsletters sign up
COPYRIGHT
The content published on this site is protected by copyright, and any unauthorized copying, reproduction, republishing, uploading, posting, transmitting or duplicating of any of the material is prohibited without my express written permission. To obtain permission to copy portions of the blog, please send an e-mail to me at info@howdoyousaythatword.com.
Developed and Customized by Wordpress Experts