Uphoria Asian Pear Liqueur

If anyone else follows some of the Food Blogs, you may have come across the blogging event called “Sugar High Friday”. Well this Friday is liquor or liqueur day, and the topic is to make a dessert using booze. As a bartender that has a great appreciation for food, desserts especially, I figured there had to be something I could contribute. After a little thought I came up with a interesting idea that spans cocktails and desserts. My contribution will be known this Friday, but it did require me to pick up a liqueur that had a green colour. Melon or Mindori was a little too obvious, and the Apple Sour stuff is way to fake for me, but anything that’s bright green is probably going to taste synthetic. Anyway, there is a product produced by Corby that has hit the market called Uphoria (not spelled euphoria), and it is bright green. So, since I purchased a bottle, I figured I should review it.

On any liquor store shelf you can find fruit flavour liqueurs like banana, cherry, orange and melon. All of them have corresponding colours, and in some cases like blue curacao, the flavour doesn’t match the colour. There really hasn’t been much new in the bright coloured liqueur world lately, probably because vodka has taken the spotlight with the multitude of different flavoured vodkas available. But, there are still some flavours popping up and Corby has recently created the Uphoria line of products. These include Asian Pear (bright green), Pomegranate (bright red) and Guava (pinkish). All of these products are 15% alcohol and are made from all natural flavours, but artificial colouring.

My expectation, like most other flavour liqueurs, was that the Uphoria Asian Pear was going to be syrupy sweet and pour like motor oil. I was wrong, it wasn’t flavoured sugar syrup. I was surprised when I first tasted it because I would usually mix this with something, but for tasting reasons I always try things straight out of the bottle. The flavour was obviously pear, but it was actually fairly decent, probably because they use all natural flavourings. The nose is again pear, but what would you expect. Nothing really special here, but this liqueur has some good mixing potential for summer cocktails.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Uphoria (I always want to spell it Euphoria, but it’s a marketing thing) mostly because it wasn’t syrupy sweet like most liqueurs, nor did it have the artificial harshness associated with other fluorescent liqueurs. I’m sure it has some cocktail potential, but for now it will be used in my “Sugar High Friday” dessert.

Euphoria Asian Pear Liqueur is available at your local LCBO or other fine liqueur store at a retail price of $22.25 for a 750ml bottle.

Other Products:

Euphoria Pink Guava Liqueur (Price: $22.45)
Euphoria Pomegranate Liqueur (Price: $22.45)