What is the difference between an eau-de-vie and a fruit liqueur?

The label of an eau-de-vie shows the word eau-de-vie together with the name of the fruit, and an alcohol content of at least 37.5 percent.

Regulation (EU) 2019/787 places fruit eau-de-vie in category 9 of Annex I. The legal designation is eau-de-vie, supplemented with the name of the fruit, berry or vegetable. In addition, the designation may be formed with -wasser, in combination with the name of the fruit. For a number of fruits the regulation allows its own name that replaces the legal designation, such as kirsch for cherries, slivovitz or quetsch for plums and mirabelle for mirabelle plums.

A fruit eau-de-vie may contain at most 18 grams of sweetener per litre, expressed as invert sugar, and that sugar may only be used to round off the taste.

The regulation also prohibits flavouring fruit eau-de-vie and adding alcohol. What you taste must therefore come from the distilled fruit. The distillate is distilled to less than 86 percent, so that the smell and taste of the raw material come along, and it contains at least 200 grams of volatile substances per hectolitre of 100 percent alcohol.

A liqueur contains at least 100 grams of sugar per litre and has an alcohol content of at least 15 percent.

Liqueur is category 33 in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/787. Unlike an eau-de-vie, a liqueur may be flavoured and coloured, and the alcohol does not have to come from the fruit itself. As soon as a spirit drink reaches that sugar threshold, the word liqueur belongs on the label. A fruit liqueur can therefore be made with fruit juice, with a flavouring, or with a distillate as its base.

No, because a liqueur brings at least 100 grams of sugar per litre and an eau-de-vie at most 18 grams, which makes a dish or cocktail much sweeter.

In the kitchen that works both ways. Whoever flavours a cake or a sauce with an eau-de-vie keeps control of the sugar. Whoever uses a liqueur gets the sugar along with it and has to cut back elsewhere in the recipe. The alcohol content also differs: 37.5 percent against 15 percent means that more of a liqueur is needed for the same effect.

Vruchtenjenever is a protected Dutch name with at least 18 volume percent alcohol, whereas a fruit eau-de-vie is purely distilled fruit of at least 37.5 percent.

The Netherlands has five genever names with a protected geographical indication: jenever, graanjenever, jonge jenever, oude jenever and vruchtenjenever. For each of those names, a product specification lays down what may go into it and where the drink must come from. A fruit eau-de-vie does not fall under that, but under category 9 of the European regulation, and has no area of origin.