The Art of the Angevin Digestif
“Un p‘tit digeo?” If you have the pleasure to be invited to an Angevin dinner party, you may receive this invitation to enjoy a digestif. Your host may offer a sniff of strong alcohol like eau de vie or perhaps some brandy; around these parts, it’ll be Cointreau. This orange-flavored liqueur is sweetly aromatic and crystal clear, served neat or on the rocks: look closely to see the natural oils dissipating into pearlescent swirls around the ice.
The liqueur is made in Angers, France. I’ve called this city and the surrounding area of Anjou home for 12 years. When I first arrived, I was a career English teacher moving in with her French boyfriend and starting life anew after five years in East Asia. Anjou is my adoptive home: where I learned French, where that boyfriend became my husband, and where I shifted from teacher to artist. Luckily for me, this is pristine wine country, with robust agriculture and culinary gems.
Cointreau sits among jewels in the crown of Angers. Its presence is unavoidable. Visit any flea market or tag sale, and you’re sure to see vintage bric-a-brac featuring the former mascot, the chalk-white clown Pierrot Cointreau. Bakeries perfume cake fillings with it. The rectangular amber glass bottle itself is distinctive and patented to stymie counterfeits.
Cointreau started as a family-run confectionery business located in the city center, on Rue Saint-Laud. The downtown Angers that the Cointreau brothers knew is largely the same as it is for us today. One of the city’s oldest roads, this street was—and remains—a bustling shopping hub lined with cafés. Iconic city landmarks remain untouched: the thickly trunked turrets of the ninth-century castle, the grand cathedral spires overlooking the city, and of course La Maison d’Adam, Angers’s most impressive timber-framed home. It was originally an apothecary shop whose exterior showcased state-of-the-art craftsmanship in the form of intricately carved wooden figures ranging from the biblical Adam and Eve and Tree of Life, to fantastical chimeras, to the secular and even the vulgar. Look closely and you’ll find the famous Father Triple-Bollocks (Le Père Tricouillard), an impudent man flashing his nuts at the passers-by below.
Though perhaps better known for its role in the Margarita and Cosmopolitan, it is also at the heart of our local festive cocktail: the Soupe Angevine. A concoction of Cointreau, sparkling wine, and citrus, it’s a great way to start a party, preferably by serving generous ladlefuls from a punch bowl.
Soupe Angevine Recipe:
Mix chilled ingredients together in a punch bowl: 1 bottle of crémant de Loire; 1 ladleful each of Cointreau, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Serve immediately.
The now famed orange liqueur recipe was perfected in 1885 by Edouard Cointreau, at a time when oranges were a precious Christmastime treat for most. Edouard’s wife, Louisa Motais, imposed a 40-hour workweek with paid time off at the Cointreau factory, a move that was ahead of its time. She was a women’s rights activist and member of the Red Cross during World War I, receiving distinctions from the Légion d’honneur. The city of Angers dedicated a street in her name in 2022.
Angers has largely shed the trappings of its industrial past, and the original Cointreau factory has been converted into corporate offices and luxury apartments. Angers has become a city where party-hardy students, unhoused crustpunks, fur-coated Old Money, fine-dining DINKs (“dual income no kids”), and sprightly families rub elbows against a backdrop of medieval architecture and encroaching gentrification.
The clandestine Belle Epoque–era anarchist propaganda of the Cointreau brothers’ day has given way to graffiti dialogues in spraypaint, wheatpasted queer art, and flyers inviting antifascist action. Today, city-sanctioned murals create a bland backdrop against which a vibrant underground art scene radiates. The newest iteration of this is the Artpothicaire, a gallery and creative space run by a collective of 30 artists.
Look past the clean-cut brochure version of Angers to the pulp. Sit down at a table and shoot the shit with your host. If they like you enough, you’ll be offered a digestif: a special invitation to prolong the dénouement of the evening, a little nightcap to savor as the conversation lingers. To enjoy your drink like a local, sip gently and enjoy communally.
Bibliography
“Angers. La saga des publicités Cointreau.” Courrier de l’Ouest, 15 Aug 2017. https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/angers-49000/angers-la-saga-des-publicites-cointreau-2cf749ac-e3a7-3087-a5ef-62f92eb96bec
Beauvallet, Laurent. “Mais qui était Louisa Motais, la dernière femme à donner son nom à une rue d’Angers ?” Ouest France, 12 December 2022. https://www.angers.fr/l-action-municipale/egalite-femmes-hommes/annuaire-des-femmes-remarquables-angevines/index.html
Bertoldi, Sylvain. “Les premières oranges.” Vivre à Angers n° 417, été 2018. Archives Patrimoniales de la Ville d’Angers. https://archives.angers.fr/chroniques-historiques/les-chroniques-par-annees/octobre-2010-decembre-2019/les-premieres-oranges/index.html
“History of the Castle of Angers.” Centre des monuments nationaux. https://www.chateau-angers.fr/en/discover/history-of-the-castle-of-angers
“L’histoire de Cointreau.” Cointreau.fr, Accessed 30 March 2026. https://www.cointreau.com/fr/fr/art-de-cointreau/histoire
“L’Histoire de la Maison d’Adam d’Angers.” Accessed 15 May 2026. https://www.maison-artisans.com/fr/content/10-l-histoire-de-la-maison-d-adam-d-angers
“Louisa Motais, épouse Cointreau.” Annuaire des femmes remarquables angevines, Angers.fr. Accessed 30 March 2026. https://www.angers.fr/l-action-municipale/egalite-femmes-hommes/annuaire-des-femmes-remarquables-angevines/index.html
Lari Burgos (alias Larisanjou) is a multidisciplinary artist, illustrator and food writer from New England now based in Anjou, France. A daughter of the Puerto Rican diaspora, her work explores the depths of everyday life through a visual language she calls “Domestic Psychedelia.” She writes about food history curiosities in her illustrated newsletter, RENDERED.
