Southern Comfort

Southern Comfort is an American fruit-and-spice liqueur, born in New Orleans in 1874 when the bartender Martin Wilkes Heron steeped whiskey with fruit, honey and warm spice into a smoother, sweeter drink he first called "Cuffs and Buttons." The modern liqueur reads of peach and apricot lifted with cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla over a mellow, sweet body, and — despite the "Southern whiskey" image — for much of the twentieth century it was built on a neutral grain spirit rather than whiskey. It is bottled most commonly at 35 percent alcohol by volume (70 proof), though the brand has also sold lower and higher strengths. Golden-amber, syrupy and easy-drinking, it is sipped neat or over ice and, above all, mixed — most famously in the fruity, sloe-gin-and-amaretto Alabama Slammer. Owned today by the Sazerac Company, it is one of the best-known American liqueurs.