Cream liqueurs

Cream liqueurs aren't just a Christmas drink, discovers Joanne Simon. Served over ice, in cocktails or as part of a sweet - or even savoury! - recipe, they make the perfect summer accompaniment. What do li queurs, bloodletting and being burnt at the stake have in common? Not much, you might think, but in fact they all developed during the Middle Ages as "no pain, no gain" potions to cure various afflictions.

The last leech I saw was attached to my ankle in a Madagascan rainforest some years ago, and witch-hunts of the non-political variety don't happen much anymore (though the "90 youths held for witch-hunt rampage" in Polokwane earlier this year might tell you otherwise). But liqueurs are more popular than ever, even if we can no longer pretend to be indulging for our health - especially when it comes to cream liqueurs.

A cream, you see, is completely different from a crème - as in Crème de Cassis or Crème de Menthe - which is basically a liqueur with enough sugar to become thick in texture. A cream, on the other hand, has literally had dairy milk added to make it thick, mild and exceptionally easy to drink. Many wine lovers may turn up their noses at the sticky stuff being served as an after-dinner drink (never mind as a Screaming Orgasm or Slippery Nipple), but how many of us can deny its wicked charm when poured over ice cream for a "grown-up" dessert? It's no wonder cream liqueur is the second fastest-growing spirits sector globally (after Tequila), with 115,7 million litres consumed in 2004.

Amazingly, the world's very first cream liqueur was launched a mere 31 years ago (on 26 November 1974, to be precise). Made by "combining art and science" to blend two normally incompatible products - fresh Irish cream and aged Irish whiskey - Baileys Irish Cream is now the top-selling liqueur brand in the world, and also the single most successful spirit to be introduced anywhere over the past three decades. With over 2 260 glasses of Baileys enjoyed every minute of every day (in 130 countries including South Africa since last year), it apparently takes 40 000 dairy cows on 1 750 farms to produce enough milk to fill 6,6 million cases a year.

The mind boggles, which may be why the only cream liqueur I can remember from my misspent South African youth is Cape Velvet (sipped out of a conveniently child-sized glass, under parental supervis-ion of course, as a Christmas treat when I was, well, very young…). Today there are three flavours of Cape Velvet alone, while Baileys wasn't the only big launch here last year - even bigger was the arrival of Ilala Cream, of which we lucky drinks scribes received a bottle in a genuine leather carrier bag along with a pair of XL boxer shorts, no doubt to cope with girth expansion as a result of addiction to the drink's main ingredient: the double-distilled sap of the Ilala Palm, a plant indigenous to Africa, which apparently imbued warriors with enough courage to challenge the lions that used to rule the plains.

These "majestic beasts" are now reduced to prowling Ilala Cream's label, perhaps indicating the brand's intent to take on the undisputed king of the jungle, Amarula. Which seems ambitious, given that South Africans lapped up over 2,7 million litres of the latter last year, and domestic sales growth to June 2005 was 25%! With over six million litres sold globally, and a compound annual growth rate of 5,7% putting it in second place behind Baileys, this homegrown cream is also made from a unique subequatorial African fruit, the Marula, which is said to have aphrodisiacal properties - and to be rich in vitamins (who said liqueurs weren't healthy?).

The flesh of the Marula fruit is fermented along winemaking lines before being distilled in copper pot-stills. After maturation in small oak casks for two years, the distillate is enriched with pure Marula extract and then blended with cream. But what really makes Amarula stand out in a "rather bland marketing environment", reckons brand manager Siobhan Thompson, is its message about being authentically African. "This tends to intrigue South Africans and international consumers," she says. Which probably also explains why we have seen a proliferation of other Africanised brands in recent years - from Kalahari Thirstland (in a calabash-shaped bottle apparently containing the "berries, fruits and herbs on which the Bushmen of the Kalahari rely for survival") to Wild Africa Cream (with its leopard skin jacket and ubuntu beads on the bottleneck apparently symbolising "something African but not ethnic, an avant-garde combination of first and third world").

I for one am happy to forego eggnog in favour of something similarly sweet and creamy served over the rocks for a sunny African Christmas. But the message from all cream liqueur producers is that there are "no temporal or seasonal parameters, so it can be enjoyed anytime". Amarula, for example, is recommended "on its own, over crushed ice, or with sparkling mineral water as a tall drink". Or it can be used in "exciting" cocktails such as the Springbok (a mixture of Amarula and peppermint liqueur that is reportedly a favourite of Chelsy Davy, the girlfriend of Britain's Prince Harry). It is also "sumptuous in coffee, irresistible over ice cream and delicious in desserts".

Last but not least, it has even been used by gourmet chefs to enhance starters, salads and main courses - so if you don't know what to do with that bottle from your Christmas stocking, here's an unusual savoury suggestion (see panel) or visit www.amarula.com for more recipes.