Soho Lychee Liqueur 750ml

The lychee has been enjoyed in China for more than 2,000 years. Originating in South China's subtropical highlands, it is a fruit of extraordinary fragrance — the white, translucent flesh enclosed in a rough red shell, the aroma somewhere between rose water, peach, and something more specifically and more memorably tropical that no single comparison fully captures. For two millennia it was one of the most prized fruits in the Orient, carried by imperial couriers on horseback to Beijing in the Tang Dynasty, celebrated in Chinese literature and gastronomy as the standard of subtropical perfection.

It took until 1989 for a French liqueur producer to recognize what had been obvious to Asia for two thousand years: that lychee, properly captured in a liqueur with the natural essence of the fruit at its most fragrant, would be unlike any other liqueur in the Western market. Soho was created that year in southern France — at the Caves Byrrh facility in Thuir, the historic production house that Pernod Ricard acquired and that had been making aromatized wines and liqueurs in the Roussillon since the late 19th century. The lychee liqueur they created was immediately successful in France, launched in Asia as Dita in 1992 where it found an even more natural audience, and eventually reached the United States in 2000 where the Lychee Martini was waiting to happen.

Today Soho is the #1 lychee liqueur in the world by IWSR volume — the essential base of the Lychee Martini, one of the most popular cocktails globally in the early 2000s and still the most immediately evocative and most consistently ordered exotic fruit cocktail in Asian restaurants across the United States. Wine Enthusiast awarded 92 Points: "the highly perfumed aroma features good smells of lychee with additional layers of fragrances of parchment, palm oil, flowers and sealing wax. The palate entry is gently sweet and properly fruity — the midpalate displays a textured sweetness/ripeness that is delicious and light-to-medium weighted. Wraps up sweet, succulent, and genuinely tasty." The San Francisco World Spirits Competition awarded Silver in 2007.

Two thousand years of Asian fruit culture. Thirty-six years of French liqueur craft. The most perfumed and the most immediately beautiful liqueur in the Blackwell's section.

Origins & Craftsmanship

Soho was created in 1989 by French liqueur specialists who recognized that the lychee's extraordinary aromatic profile — floral, tropical, slightly perfumed, entirely unlike any European fruit — was both genuinely exotic to the Western palate and genuinely universal in its appeal once encountered. The production takes place at Caves Byrrh in Thuir, a small town in the Roussillon near the Spanish border in southern France — the historic facility that the Violet family built in the late 19th century to produce their celebrated Byrrh aromatized wine, and that the Pernod Ricard Group has developed into one of France's most sophisticated liqueur production facilities.

The production uses natural essences of Asian lychees — the specific botanical extract process that captures the lychee's most characteristic aromatic compounds — the rose-like floral notes, the tropical fruit sweetness, the slightly perfumed quality that fresh lychee produces in the first moments after the shell is cracked open — in a liqueur base of appropriate sweetness and 21% ABV. The clarity of the finished product is entirely intentional: Soho is crystal clear, the transparent liqueur's appearance deliberately deceptive about the aromatic richness it contains, and the color deliberately chosen to allow the drinker's imagination — and the cocktail's visual presentation — to take precedence over any brown or golden hue that aging or coloring would add.

The brand launched in Asia in 1992 under the name Dita — a separate label for the Asian market that preceded the US launch by eight years and established Soho's standing in the market that had always understood lychee's appeal most completely. The US launch in 2000 coincided with the explosion of the Lychee Martini on American cocktail menus — a timing that was not accidental and that established Soho as the reference liqueur for an entire cocktail category.

Critics Reviews

Wine Enthusiast — 92 Points: "The highly perfumed aroma features good smells of lychee with additional layers of fragrances of parchment, palm oil, flowers and sealing wax. The palate entry is gently sweet and properly fruity; the midpalate displays a textured sweetness/ripeness that is delicious and light-to-medium weighted. Wraps up sweet, succulent, and genuinely tasty."

San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2007 — Silver Medal

IWSR — #1 Lychee Liqueur Worldwide (Category Leader)

Difford's Guide: "Crystal clear. Pungent, candied fruit led by peach, with lychee boiled sweets and rose. Intense tinned lychees with lychee casing, stone and leaves, with a palate that balances acidity, alcohol and sweetness. Lingering acidity with tinned lychees and lychee stone."

Jensens Liquors: "Clear, vibrant floral aromas accompanied by lychee. Palate displays a viscous texture with sweet lychee nut and candied fruit flavours."

Soho official: "The clarity of the transparent liqueur is deceptive to the array of sweet, natural flavors it contains. Vibrant floral aromas accompanied by a viscous texture with sweet lychee nut and candied fruit flavours. Refreshing, refined, tropical and bright with a hint of rose petal."

Spec's official: "This fresh delicious liqueur reveals the delicate aromatic flavors of modern Asia. This fruit originating from tropical Asia with its delicate white and very fragrant flesh reveals a flavor that is both fresh and sweet inspired by oriental aromas."

Tasting Profile

Nose Crystal clear with brilliant transparency — the most visually pure liqueur in the Blackwell's section, the absence of color communicating the decision to present the lychee's natural essence without any additional visual context. The nose is immediately and unmistakably lychee — pungent, candied, and highly perfumed in the specific way that the lychee fruit itself produces when the shell is first cracked. Candied fruit leads with a peach-adjacent sweetness — richer than fresh peach, slightly more concentrated, and adding the tropical stone fruit quality that makes lychee's aromatic profile both familiar and entirely exotic. Lychee boiled sweets add the most specifically and most directly varietal quality — the confectionary, slightly synthetic but entirely pleasant lychee candy note that is the variety's most immediately recognizable aromatic signature. Rose petal adds the most delicate and most beautiful secondary dimension — the floral quality that fresh lychee flesh produces most specifically when perfectly ripe. Parchment and sealing wax add the most unexpected and most specifically luxurious aromatic notes — the Wine Enthusiast's most precise characterization of Soho's aromatic complexity, confirming that the natural Asian lychee essence adds dimensions beyond simply sweet lychee candy. Palm oil adds a slightly tropical, slightly exotic warmth. Flowers add further floral lift alongside the rose petal.

Palate Gently sweet, properly fruity, and light-to-medium weighted — the Wine Enthusiast's palate characterization confirmed from the first sip as the most accurate and most useful description of what Soho delivers in the glass. The entry is immediately accessible: the sweetness calibrated to be generous without becoming cloying, the fruit character vivid without being artificially intense. Intense tinned lychees carry through from the nose with the specific quality of perfectly ripe canned lychee — slightly sweeter and slightly more concentrated than fresh, but entirely true to the variety's most characteristic flavor. Lychee casing and stone add the slightly bitter, slightly earthy secondary notes that give the palate its most specifically botanical and most genuinely complex dimension — the element that prevents Soho from reading as simply sweet lychee candy rather than a genuine fruit liqueur with varietal depth. Candied fruit sweetness builds through the mid-palate. The texture is viscous and coating — the 21% ABV providing just enough alcohol to carry the lychee's sweetness without flattening into simple syrup. A balancing acidity runs through the mid-palate and the finish — the quality that the Difford's reviewer specifically noted as the expression's most structurally impressive achievement.

Finish Lingering, acidic, and lychee-persistent. Tinned lychees and lychee stone carry the close most specifically — the slightly tart, slightly bitter stone-adjacent quality that Difford's identified as the most characterful finish note. Sweet, succulent, and genuinely tasty — the Wine Enthusiast's final characterization confirmed in a close that invites another sip with the immediate appeal of something that is simply and entirely pleasant.

Quick Overview

Serving & Occasion

Chilled or over ice — the lychee fragrance is most vivid cold, and the 21% ABV makes this the most immediately accessible and most broadly welcoming liqueur in the Blackwell's section. Served in a champagne flute alongside prosecco or Champagne for the most effortless and most visually beautiful pre-dinner cocktail. As a digestif served over a single large ice cube with a fresh lychee garnish — the actual fruit alongside the liqueur creating the most specifically authentic and most aromatically complete encounter with the variety's character. Mixed in any cocktail that benefits from the lychee's distinctive floral-tropical-sweet combination.

Cocktail Suggestions

The Lychee Martini (the signature serve — the cocktail Soho created) 1.5 oz vodka · 1 oz Soho Lychee Liqueur · ⅓ oz lychee juice · ⅔ oz fresh lime juice. Stirred with ice, strained into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a fresh lychee or edible flower. The cocktail that made Soho the world's #1 lychee liqueur — the vodka's neutrality allowing the lychee's floral, tropical character to lead completely. One of the most popular cocktails globally in the early 2000s and still the most consistently ordered exotic fruit cocktail in Asian restaurants across America.

Lychee Spritz 2 oz Soho Lychee Liqueur · chilled Prosecco to top · splash of soda · lychee garnish. Built over ice in a wine glass. Light, sparkling, and perfect for lower-proof summer entertaining — the lychee's floral character meeting Prosecco's effervescence in a combination of unusual elegance and immediate visual beauty.

Lychee Cosmopolitan 1 oz vodka · 1 oz Soho · ½ oz Cointreau · ½ oz cranberry juice · squeeze of lime. Shaken over ice, served up. The lychee's tropical sweetness adds a specifically floral dimension to the classic Cosmopolitan format — a cocktail that both honors the original and adds an unexpected layer of Asian fruit culture.

Lychee Champagne Cocktail ½ oz Soho over a sugar cube in a Champagne flute, top with Champagne. The most elegant and the most occasion-appropriate serve — the lychee and Champagne's shared floral and yeast-driven complexity aligning in a pre-dinner cocktail of genuine sophistication.