Whether you’re new to citrus liqueurs or have a collection of dusty half-bottles in your home bar, it’s easy to confuse Grand Marnier and Cointreau. Both have French names and long pedigrees. They appear in many of the same co*cktail recipes, and some people use their brand names interchangeably as a shorthand for all orange liqueur—like calling every facial tissue a Kleenex.
But within these two somewhat similar liqueurs, nuances abound. Differences between Grand Marnier and Cointreau include ingredients, production, flavor, and how they can best be used in your glass or shaker. Here’s everything you need to know about Grand Marnier vs. Cointreau.
Grand Marnier vs Cointreau Fast Facts
- Cointreau is a type of triple sec, whereas Grand Marnier is triple sec combined with cognac.
- Both are classified as orange liqueurs in the United States.
- Both have 40% alcohol by volume.
- Cointreau is unaged, while Grand Marnier contains barrel-aged cognac.
- Grand Marnier debuted its orange-and-cognac liqueur in 1880, whereas Cointreau became available in 1885.
- Grand Marnier is typically more expensive. For example, a 750-ml bottle of Grand Marnier retails for around $55, versus roughly $40 for a 750-ml bottle of Cointreau.
What Is Cointreau?
Cointreau is an unaged triple sec, or orange liqueur, made from Spanish and Caribbean orange peels, neutral alcohol, sugar, and water.
The company dates to 1885, when brothers Adolphe and Edouard-Jean Cointreau expanded their confectionery business in Angers, France to include liqueurs. Edouard-Jean’s son, Edouard, is credited with creating the orange liqueur now called Cointreau circa 1871. At the turn of the century, an English importer, George Glendenning, brought Cointreau abroad and reportedly encouraged distillers to make it less sweet to appeal to more audiences in 1923.
Cointreau is a triple sec, a category of liqueurs that is confusingly also a brand name. If you see those two words capitalized as Triple Sec, trust it’s the latter. All triple secs are orange-flavored and most fall between 20–40% alcohol by volume. Depending on which corner of the internet you believe, some claim that Cointreau invented the category, and that the name describes the three types of orange peels and comparatively lower sugar content of its product (sec means dry in French). However, another French brand, Combier, says that its distiller made the “world’s first triple sec” in Saumur, France in 1834, several decades before Edouard Cointreau joined the family business. Cointreau may have simply been the first to register the term in its brand name in 1885.
Cointreau was marketed as Cointreau Triple Sec until the decades between World Wars I and II. During that time, Cointreau dropped the phrase to differentiate itself from other triple secs entering the market. In 1990, Cointreau merged with another French liquor company, Rémy Martin, to form Rémy Cointreau, a Paris-based drinks conglomerate.
Distilled in copper column stills, Cointreau pours clear in the glass. It has bright, zippy orange flavors and a dry finish that some bartenders credit to the relatively small amount of beet sugar in its recipe. While you could sip it straight or on the rocks, it’s more commonly used in co*cktails as a modifier. We recommend it in Sidecars, Cosmopolitans, and any drink that benefits from measured sweetness, orange flavor, and a crisp finish.
What Is Grand Marnier?
Grand Marnier is a cognac-based orange liqueur that contains both triple sec and oak-aged cognac. It contains 49% clear triple sec plus 51% cognac that’s been aged in oak barrels.
Love, marriage, and savvy marketing underscore Grand Marnier’s backstory. In 1876, Julia Lapostolle, the granddaughter of a fruit liqueur distiller, married Louis-Alexandre Marnier, the son of merchants. They formed a company called La Maison Marnier Lapostolle and began to distribute the Lapostolle family’s wares. In 1880, Louis-Alexandre blended a liqueur made from Caribbean oranges with cognac into a spirit he called Curaçao Marnier. A friend, the famed Swiss hotelier César Ritz, suggested renaming it Grand Marnier. In 1892, Louis-Alexandre tweaked packaging, selling Grand Mariner in a trademarked, copper-still-shaped bottle designed by Baccarat and still used today.
In 2016, Gruppo Campari, the Italian beverage company that also owns Campari, Aperol, and Espolòn tequila, became a controlling shareholder in the company that owns Grand Marnier, Société des Produits Marnier Lapostolle.
Grand Marnier is 51% cognac. Made from ugni blanc grapes from the Cognac region of France, the cognac is double-distilled in a copper still, aged in Tronçais and Limousin oak barrels, and blended with other crus and eaux-de-vie. The remaining 49% of Grand Marnier consists of column-distilled triple sec made with bitter Caribbean oranges to create an amber-hued liqueur with candied orange and nutty aromas and flavors.
All of these choices give Grand Marnier a darker amber color than other triple secs, plus a fuller body and nutty flavors and aromas with caramelized orange notes. It can be sipped neat as an after-dinner drink, and, notably, is a key component in the sauce for crêpes suzette, a classic French dish. It’s also a great co*cktail modifier, though it’s fuller and richer than other triple secs. As such, may need to tweak recipe specifications to taste, rather than directly substituting it in place of generic triple sec. It works particularly well in the Singapore Sling, where the liqueur provides structure alongside the heady mix of gin and Cherry Heering liqueur.
Grand Marnier vs Cointreau: What’s the Difference?
The main difference between Grand Marnier and Cointreau is that only Grand Marnier includes cognac. As a result, their base materials, production methods, and flavors aren’t identical.
Ingredients for Cointreau are orange peels, sugar, water, and a neutral base spirit. Grand Marnier uses those as well as alcohol distilled from grapes grown in the Cognac region of France.
Cointreau is distilled using copper column stills, whereas Grand Marnier production involves column stills for the orange liqueur and copper pot stills for the cognac. Cointreau is clear and unaged, but the cognac in Grand Marnier is aged French oak. Because 51% of its liquid spends time in barrels, Grand Marnier has a darker color, fuller body, and toastier notes than Cointreau, which looks and tastes lighter and brighter.
