Cocktails with Apricot brandy liqueur
Apricot brandy liqueur is a sweetened fruit liqueur flavored with apricot flesh and kernels, not a distilled apricot spirit despite the word "brandy" in its name.
ABVaround 26%Though products vary and the EU liqueur class sets a 15% minimum.
Substitutes for Apricot brandy liqueur
As a background accent another apricot-forward sweetener stands in, rebalanced with sugar syrup and a little strength. Where the apricot is the point, nothing reconstructs it from a different fruit.
Often confused with
Apricot eau-de-vie / distilled apricot brandy (fruit spirit)
A dry, unsweetened distillate against a sweetened low-strength infusion. They share the words "apricot brandy" on the label, so a recipe written for one comes out either cloying or bone dry with the other.
US flavored brandy (apricot flavored brandy)
A US labeling class rather than a kind of fruit spirit: a brandy base with apricot flavoring added, sugar permitted and a 30% ABV minimum. It is sweeter and thinner than a steeped liqueur, so the drink needs its syrup cut and the aroma reads candied.
Creme de noyau/noyaux
Crème de noyau is built on stone-fruit kernels rather than the flesh — a different part of the same fruit. It tastes of almond where this tastes of apricot, so a drink swapped over reads like marzipan.
