Why There Should Be A Bottle of Alizé in Your Fridge Right Now

You remember Alizé, right? That neon yellow (or “bleu”) liquor in the clear glass bottle with the seductive, scripted red font? Name dropped by rappers like Tupac Shakur, Biggie and Dr. Dre, it was ubiquitous in the ‘90s, but now, no one seems to know or care about the French liqueur. Yet as unkind as the times have been to the once beloved liquor, Alizé has somehow survived on dusty shelves in divey liquor stores everywhere—and that’s a good thing. We’re here to turn back the clock on Alizé and rescue that bottle from obscurity. We’re here to tell you to go to that divey liquor store, and pick up a bottle. Alizé isn’t just a relic from ‘90s hip hop songs—it’s the delicious, Swiss-army knife of liqueurs. Here’s why there should be a bottle in your fridge right now.

Made with a base of premium French vodka (or occasionally Cognac) and fresh fruit purée (or juice), Alizé is actually much higher quality than most of the liqueurs you can buy at the liquor store. According to the company’s website, an elite team of master blenders scours the world for the highest quality, “exotic” fruit flavors. Compared to other bottom-shelf liqueurs, which use artificial sweeteners and ingredients or coloring agents, Alizé uses all-natural flavorings. If you sip Alizé straight, you can taste the quality and freshness, and in cocktails, Alizé adds fruitiness without diminishing the quality of your drink.

Whether you’re mixing it with Champagne, vodka, soda or in tropical beach sippers, Alizé is an incredibly versatile ingredient. With a rainbow of flavors (literally), the liqueur can be used to improve almost anything. Try swapping out blue curaçao for Alizé Bleu in cocktails like a Blue Hawaii. With notes of fresh ginger, passion fruit and sour cherry, the Bleu Passion (which must be pronounced in your best French accent) adds fruity depth and spice to the drink, along with a vibrant, almost neon color.

Alizé Rose Passion, an alluring, hazy-pink liqueur flavored with rose water, lychee and strawberry, is the perfect accompaniment to white rum or funky rhum agricoles. The next time you make Strawberry Daiquiris, add a few splash for an extra punch of strawberry sweetness or try it in blended booze-cicles like the Frozen Pink Panties.

If Apple Martinis are your jam, Alizé has your back. Their apple liqueur—which is a vivacious Kermit the Frog green—is a succulent blend of apple juice and premium French vodka. In the token 90s Martini, Alizé’s Apple liqueur breathes new life into the antiquated cocktail, infusing the tipple with succulent flavors of fresh Granny Smith apples.

The crème de la crème of the Alizé line is the Coco Peach; with the nose of hot beach sand and coconut suntan lotion, it tastes like a basket of fresh peaches fell into a Piña Colada. This liqueur is a beast in tropical cocktails. The Coco Peach liqueur is perfect for fun, warm-weather cocktails like the Painkiller. Simply swap out the measure of sticky-sweet Coco Lopez for some Alizé and the cocktail instantly becomes a creamier, boozier, more layered fruity drink.

Every single bottle in the Alizé line is not only an insane color, but each flavor also has its own strange brew of exotic fruits and spices that can be easily used in place of syrups or juices. L’ Original, aka Gold Passion, is the perfect liqueur for cocktail recipes that require a passion fruit syrup. Instead of making the complex syrup or trying to find high quality passion fruit purée, simply swap the syrup out for Alizé Gold Passion. Use Alizé Gold Passion in a Hurricane and you’ll achieve head-spinning, boozy complexity while maintaining the passion fruit’s bright acidity for which the drink is known.

Alizé Pomegranate—a blend of passion fruit juice, pomegranate juice and French Cognac—is essentially a tarter, boozier variation of grenadine (albeit without the hibiscus flower). The pomegranate liqueur can be used in any cocktail that calls for a measure of the vibrantly red-hued syrup. In a Tequila Sunrise, the liqueur adds the depth of a Cognac (use a reposado tequila to make the cocktail even bolder), while making the cocktail less saccharine than a commercial grenadine syrup would. Best of all, you don’t have to source dried hibiscus flowers or spend a full day prepping a DIY grenadine to get the benefits of the syrup.

If you really want to give your Vodka Cranberry a high-intensity make over, try trading out watery cranberry juice for three quarters of an ounce of Alizé Red Passion—a tart mixture of cranberry, passion fruit concentrate and vodka. Top the drink with a splash of soda water and a squeeze of fresh lime and you’ve got yourself one hell of a night ahead of you.

*Drops the mic*