ratafia

The earliest clear English sighting of ratafia dates to 1699, in a recipe collection describing it as a cordial made with brandy, fruit kernels, and sugar. By then the French had been using the word for at least a decade. Its origin is contested, and two credible theories have circulated since the eighteenth century. One traces it to the legal Latin phrase rata fiat, meaning let the deal stand, because such a drink was offered to seal an agreement. The other points to tafia, a rough West Indian rum made from molasses rather than cane juice.

Tafia entered French through the Caribbean colonies: it was the cheap spirit of Martinique and Guadeloupe, drunk by enslaved workers and sailors alike. French colonists added the prefix ra- and carried ratafia back to Europe, where it was stripped of its colonial origins and refined into a drawing-room liqueur made with good brandy and bitter almond kernels. The Caribbean rum became a Parisian fashion, and the social distance between the two drinks could not have been greater.

In France and Britain, ratafia was made by steeping fruit, flowers, or bitter kernels in brandy with sugar. The most prized version used the kernels inside peach or apricot pits, which contain benzaldehyde and produce a strong almond flavor. By the mid-eighteenth century, ratafia had also become the name for a small almond-flavored biscuit served alongside the drink. Mrs. Beeton's 1861 household manual includes three ratafia recipes: two for the liqueur and one for the biscuit.

The biscuit outlasted the drink in Britain. Victorian and Edwardian hostesses served ratafia biscuits with syllabubs and trifles, and by the early twentieth century the word had largely detached from its alcoholic origin. In France the liqueur persisted in regional production: Champagne ratafia, made from grape juice and marc, is still produced under appellation rules established in 2015.