Post #297125 by TikiJosh on Thu, Apr 5, 2007 1:58 PM

Well, true. You can call Orange Curacao triple sec, but is it "incorrect" to call Cointreau a type of triple sec? Or is it in a class all it's own?
Anyway, I mixed up a Mai Tai last night with Cointreau instead of the triple sec I've been using the last few weeks. The taste was almost the same, but with the Cointreau instead of cheap DeKuyper triple sec, I noticed a little more alcohol taste/burn. I assume that Cointreau has more alcohol in it than regular old triple sec, but I didn't check the bottles to verify that.
Aside from the extra alcohol (not a bad thing), I thought that the overall drink tasted a little less "chemically-enhanced". It's sort of like the difference between using a fresh squeezed lime juice and the stuff in a bottle. The Cointreau definitely added a cleaner orange flavor to the Mai Tai. I forget how much Cointreau costs, but I'd imagine that it's a little too expensive to use everyday.