Raritas - Currant Liqueur

Raritas Blackcurrant Liqueur by Lantenhammer from black berries

Raritas Blackcurrant Liqueur by Lantenhammer is a cassis liqueur made from locally grown blackcurrants, prepared at the Tegernseer Schlossbrennerei. Sweetness and acidity are perfectly balanced here, rather than the sugar masking the fruit.

Raritas Blackcurrant Liqueur is the darkest liqueur from the Lantenhammer distillery in Upper Bavaria, with 25 percent alcohol in a 500 ml bottle. The blackcurrants are locally sourced and give the liqueur that fruit bouquet known from French cassis.

Deep violet with dark berries

In the glass, the liqueur displays a deep, dark violet color that only a truly ripe blackcurrant can produce, and this color alone reveals that no dilution with water has taken place here.

The aroma offers bold notes of dark fruits, framed by a fresh sweetness. On the palate, it becomes intensely fruity, with the pleasant acidity that defines the blackcurrant and without which a cassis would simply be sweet. The finish remains long and fruity without becoming heavy.

Cassis is the French name for the blackcurrant, and it has long stood for an entire family of beverages. What sustains it is never the sweetness alone, but always the interplay of fruit and acidity.

The Kir Royal starts in this bottle

A splash of it at the bottom of a champagne flute, topped with cold champagne or a dry sparkling wine, and the Kir Royal is ready to serve.

It works just as well neat and well-chilled, especially after a meal when you want something fruity and a heavy spirit would be too much. In the kitchen, it can be poured over vanilla ice cream, added to a red fruit jelly mixture (Rote Grütze), or served with a chocolate cake, which benefits from the acidity. If you set a dark chocolate bar next to it, your afternoon is complete.

Berries from the neighborhood instead of overseas

Blackcurrants are delicate. The bushes bear fruit for only a few weeks in midsummer; the berries lose their aroma quickly after harvest and must be processed immediately.

This is precisely why the berries for this liqueur are locally grown rather than sourced from far away as concentrate. The path from the bush to the distillery is short, and the freshness you find in the glass is essentially nothing more than this short journey.

Furthermore, unlike red currants, the blackcurrant is rarely eaten raw because it tastes tart and spicy. It is only in liqueurs, syrups, or jams that it truly reveals its potential.

It is prepared at the Tegernseer Schlossbrennerei, home to the historic Lantenhammer stills and where distiller Christina Kölbl leads the Raritas line. Work is done in small batches because a manageable quantity of fruit can be monitored more closely.

What ends up in the bottle, therefore, is not a sweet berry syrup with alcohol, but a liqueur where the fruit itself sets the tone. Alongside the cassis, the liqueur made from fully ripe apricots and the liqueur made from shaved stone pine wood are in the same series, with the entire assortment from Schliersee nearby.