Lillet Aperitif Blanc

Candied orange, honey, pine resin, and a clean bitter edge on the close. Over ice with an orange twist, topped with tonic or sparkling wine, or as the third element in a Vesper. Classified as an aromatized wine, Lillet Blanc is 85% Bordeaux white blended with 15% macerated citrus liqueurs — sweet orange peel from Spain and Morocco, bitter green orange from Haiti — plus quinine from cinchona bark, married in oak vats and then handled like a Bordeaux, with fining, racking, and filtering.

Brothers Paul and Raymond Lillet were Bordeaux wine and liqueur traders who founded their maison in 1872; the first quinine-laced white aperitif followed in 1887 as Kina Lillet.