Level Up Your Spritz With Calamansi Liqueur

This summer, I’ve been chasing calamansi. It started when I had the Filipino citrus fruit in a Calamansi-ade on a mocktail menu, and it struck just the right notes of sweet and sour. In cocktails, bartenders have thrown it into a Paper Plane, a tropical bourbon drink and this stellar Martini. The latter, by Paradise Lost’s Kitty Bernardo, uses Manille Liqueur de Calamansi, distilled in the Philippines. The product offers a versatile way to incorporate the fruit, which can be difficult to source outside of its native country.

“I would describe calamansi as a tangerine plus a lime,” says Bernardo. “Lime [has] a dry, acrid flavor and lemon has a sweetness and florality. Adding calamansi gives you a more well-rounded picture of flavor, kind of like the lighter outlines in a painting.” Outside of the Tiny Sparrow Martini, Bernardo also recommends it in a Calamansi Spritz, which lets the liqueur shine alongside Suze and ginger beer. 

Bernardo says they have noticed calamansi gaining recognition in the cocktail scene, similar to the rise in popularity of pandan and ube—two other essential Filipino flavors. “The thing that can fundamentally hurt is when those ingredients become divorced from their cultural roots,” Bernardo says. “We can’t forget where they came from.” With the liqueur, they appreciate being able to share a part of their culture. “This is a quintessential Filipino citrus fruit. It’s a nice metaphor for how small the country is, but how long we’ve had to deal with colonization. We are everywhere, and we are resilient.”