This post is about seven years old but still appears at the top of Google results for "creme de cacao brands", so I thought I'd update it.

The best brand of creme de cacao on the market today appears to be Tempus Fugit's Creme de Cacao, which is a recreation of recipes from the liqueur's heyday, back before the use of extracts flooded the market with crap.

I transferred my 2011 batch from the mismatched bottles I used to age them into nice 375mL bottles appropriate for gifting today, and I noticed something interesting: distinct differences between liquor that had aged in clear glass, and that aged in darker (green and black) glass.

To the eye, anything aged in darker bottles was much more appealing, with greater clarify and more vibrant color, tending towards more reddish hues. The stuff from the clear bottles, by contrast, was a more drab, muddy brown, with apparently more suspended sediment.

To the palette, however, the nocino aged in clear glass was indisputably superior, with greater body and depth of flavor. The beautiful red liquid from the dark glass? Almost sour, and entirely unlike its clear-aged brethren.

Now, it's entirely possible that the difference was not entirely due to the color of the glass alone. I, for one, have a hard time believing it. Perhaps I just didn't clean my bottles equally, or the sugar had not fully dissolved when I initially split them into bottles for storage. It definitely deserves more investigation.

I'm not sure I'll be the one to do that investigation, though. Depends how I feel in two months, when it's time to strain and bottle this year's batch. For now, I'm keeping it all in one big, clear glass carboy.

It's that time of year again. Last year's batch has mellowed into deliciousness, and we're one week into infusion of this year's batch. Anyone else making another go at it this year?

Perhaps seven years late for you, but Far West Fungi in the Ferry Building has them right now.