The Plate

The story begins in 1849 in Angers, when Adolphe Cointreau, a confectioner, turned to liqueurs with a local speciality, guignolet. His brother Édouard-Jean joined him, and together they set up the distillery on rue Molière, on the banks of the Maine. In 1875, Édouard Cointreau, Édouard-Jean's son, took up the venture with his wife Louisa: ten years of research later, he created a crystal-clear liqueur, a blend of sweet and bitter orange peels, three times more concentrated in aromas and less sweet than those of its day, and registered the brand with its square bottle.

Awarded at the Paris and Chicago World's Fairs, the Maison invented its own advertising: the Pierrot Cointreau, the very first advertising film, shot by a cameraman of the Lumière brothers, the advertising car that toured France. Its liqueur entered the bartenders' notebooks, from the Sidecar to the Margarita, born in Acapulco, and the Cosmopolitan, created in New York. Settled since 1972 in its distillery at Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou, the Maison now counts more than 300 international awards, a sixth generation of the family looking after its heritage and a Master Distiller, Carole Quinton, keeper of its craft.

With Cointreau Creators, the Maison brings together a chef, a bartender, a pastry chef and a writer around cocktails, cuisine and culture, from Paris to London and New York. GIFTSHOP accompanies the programme with a collection of limited-edition pieces that take up the codes of the Maison: orange and blue, the C and the 1849 vintage.