How St-Germain Went From Bartender’s Ketchup to Spritz Sensation

When Robert Cooper debuted St-Germain in 2007, he sent a shockwave through the bar industry. Launched in the first few years of the cocktail renaissance, St-Germain was the world’s first commercial elderflower liqueur — and one of the first high-quality, artisan liqueurs to hit the market in decades. The timing couldn’t have been better. In the late aughts, cocktail modifiers were largely limited to fortified wines and vermouths, and the ones that did exist were centuries old, like green and yellow Chartreuse. St-Germain was new, it was exciting, and Cooper knew how to get it in front of the right people.

Bartenders at pioneering cocktail establishments like NYC’s Please Don’t Tell and Death & Co. latched onto the flavorful liqueur, stirring it into everything from tequila-based Martini variations to intricate gin-forward Tiki drinks. It didn’t take long for the trend to spread. Affectionately nicknamed “bartender’s ketchup” for its versatility and avid fanbase, St-Germain quickly became a fixture at bars around the country.

But as the cocktail revolution gained momentum, and ingredient quality improved across the board, the number of liqueurs and cocktail modifiers also multiplied. Sure, the liqueur remained a widely utilized and beloved bartender’s staple, but St-Germain no longer dominated cocktail menus in the way it once had.

Flash-forward to the 2020s, though, and one St-Germain cocktail has emerged as a standout favorite. Years after being declared the drink of the summer, the Hugo Spritz is on an unstoppable tear, appearing on menus and TikTok feeds from coast to coast. St-Germain has leaned all the way in, heavily investing in marketing the drink with celebrity-backed campaigns centered specifically around the Hugo Spritz. It all begs the question: How did St-Germain go from bartender’s ketchup to a certified spritz sensation?

Bartender’s Ketchup Was Never a Bad Thing

The idea for St-Germain originated from a cocktail Cooper enjoyed while visiting London that used elderflower syrup as a sweetener. When he returned to the States, he found nothing remotely similar on the market. So he got to work on a recipe that would capture the essence of freshly picked elderflowers in full bloom. The result was St-Germain, a 40-proof French liqueur that quickly found favor once Cooper got it into the hands of influential bartenders. From there, it didn’t take long for it to take off and earn its enduring nickname, “bartender’s ketchup.”

One of those early supporters was bartender Brian Miller, who was on the opening bar team at the now-shuttered Pegu Club in 2005 and today serves as the bar manager at New Jersey’s Stockton Inn. Cooper, a Pegu Club regular, would often drop by during development of St-Germain, bringing a few different versions of the spirit for Miller to try. “They used to have a bunch of ABVs and different variations in small little bottles,” he recalls. “I remember just loving it. There was really nothing else like it around.”

When St-Germain officially hit the market two years later, Miller had been recruited by fellow Pegu Club alum Phil Ward to open the first Death & Co. in the East Village. There, the liqueur quickly became a steady fixture behind the bar.

“We used it a lot because we loved it a lot, and we also loved Rob. But we didn’t do it to please him. There’s just so much you could do with it,” Miller says. “We had an Old Fashioned variation made with it. Phil [Ward] was making tequila drinks with it; those just flew off the shelves. We did Champagne drinks with it. I was even fortunate enough to make one of Rob’s favorite drinks, the Little Sparrow.”

Made with Calvados, apple brandy, Carpano Antica, St-Germain, Death & Co.’s house Peychaud’s bitters, and garnished with a lemon, the Little Sparrow was just one of many St-Germain cocktails Miller developed. He also created the Winchester — and later the Double Barrel Winchester — a complex tiki drink that contains a boozy blend of gins, fresh citrus, and syrups, along with the elderflower liqueur.

“It’s just so easy to work with. It was like Rittenhouse Rye for all us dorks — only it was elderflower liqueur.”

Miller explains that the creativity surrounding St-Germain at the time was more than just the novelty of having a new ingredient. It was about having the room and freedom to experiment. And Death & Co. was the perfect environment.

“[Owner] Dave Kaplan was so good at letting us create what we wanted, it was basically a lab for bartenders,” he says. “We were constantly playing with elderflower and, oftentimes, it was the perfect missing ingredient. We just wanted everybody else to taste it.”

But for St-Germain to truly enter the public vernacular, the brand needed to reach more than just bartenders — it had to connect with everyday consumers, too. Enter: First Fridays at the Guggenheim. On the first Friday of every month in the late 2000s, the iconic NYC museum would keep its doors open until the early hours in the morning, allowing guests to view its artwork at night while enjoying live music or DJ sets with a drink in hand.

For a year, Miller worked these events alongside Rob Cooper and a few other Death & Co. bartenders, slinging St-Germain cocktails to eager crowds. And people couldn’t get enough. Ahead of each event, the team would batch over 10,000 St-Germain drinks in the museum’s loading dock, and by the end of the evening, they were almost always entirely gone.

“It’s just so easy to work with. It was like Rittenhouse Rye for all us dorks — only it was elderflower liqueur,” Miller says. “Everybody wanted to support Rittenhouse Rye and they poured it in everything. The same thing went for St-Germain. Everybody wanted to get their hands on it.”

America’s fascination with the flavor sparked an era of everything elderflower all at once. But as with most trends, what’s fresh and groundbreaking can quickly become overdone. While St-Germain seemed to be in everything for a while, as the cocktail revolution matured into the mid-2010s, bartenders returned to classic cocktails and their ingredients — like Campari and other amari, for example. Meanwhile, ever more high-quality liqueurs continued to hit the market. St-Germain, once the go-to for creativity, no longer held its ubiquitous presence on cocktail menus.

“[St-Germain] is fresher, brighter, and lighter-tasting than some of the other options. It offers a really refreshing flavor in a spritz for drinkers trying to break away from the status quo.”

“As cocktail culture has evolved and grown more sophisticated, so too has the role of St-Germain behind the bar,” says Stacy Saltiel, brand director for St-Germain. “With the rise of lower-ABV cocktails, modern mixology techniques, and a renewed focus on seasonality and terroir, St-Germain is no longer seen as just an easy cocktail enhancer. It’s an intentional ingredient, chosen for its flavor.”

But one cocktail in particular has emerged as the ideal blank canvas to showcase St-Germain’s signature elderflower sweetness: the Hugo Spritz.

Aperol Fatigue and the Proliferation of the Hugo Spritz

Aperol was first launched in the U.S. in 2006, but it wasn’t until about a decade later that the colorful liqueur truly embedded itself in the American zeitgeist. Aperol is without doubt the most popular choice in the spritz family of cocktails, dominating both on- and off-premise sales. In 2022, roughly 390,000 cases were shipped to the U.S. In 2010, that number was a mere 9,000.

As early as 2019, however, reports emerged about potential Aperol Spritz fatigue, with consumers swapping Aperol for alternatives like Campari. Yet none have taken off quite like St-Germain and the Hugo Spritz. First created in Italy in 2005, the original Hugo Spritz didn’t include any liqueur at all. Instead, it was lemon balm syrup — and later housemade elderflower cordial — that joined forces with Prosecco and club soda to craft the refreshing drink. But as it took hold in America in the early 2020s, it was St-Germain that played the leading role.

Credit: Geovanna Rivera

In 2023, the Hugo Spritz was dubbed the “drink of the summer,” and while the declaration might have been premature, it was certainly not off the mark. Since 2022, Google searches for “Hugo Spritz” have surged over 500 percent, and the hashtag #HugoSpritz has garnered over 300 million views on TikTok. On-premise interest has also skyrocketed. According to data from Yelp’s 2024 Food and Drink Trends report, searches for the Hugo Spritz last year shot up 1,121 percent compared to 2023.

“Consumers are gravitating toward lower-ABV, flavorful cocktails, and the St-German Hugo Spritz delivers just that: It’s fresher, brighter, and lighter-tasting than some of the other options,” says Julian Arreola, St-Germain’s senior brand ambassador. “It offers a really refreshing flavor in a spritz for drinkers trying to break away from the status quo.”

It doesn’t hurt that the drink has some serious star power behind it. Last year, the Bacardi-owned brand launched the “Spritz Up Your Summer” campaign, starring the Queen of the North herself, Sophie Turner. And it appears to have paid off. In August 2024, St-Germain experienced a 25 percent sales boost off-premise, according to Nielsen data reviewed by VinePair. Looking to capitalize on this success, St-Germain brought Turner back this year to star in its 2025 summer campaign: “Sip Into Something Fresher Tasting.”

Credit: St-Germain Liqueur

While the Hugo Spritz might be stealing the spotlight today, a version of the drink made with St-Germain has actually existed for far longer — suggesting that St-Germain was always bound for stardom. It just didn’t have the name yet. Long before the Hugo Spritz as we know it took over menus and feeds, there was the St-Germain Cocktail, a simple blend of elderflower liqueur, Champagne, and club soda. Sound familiar?

The St-Germain Cocktail actually predated America’s Aperol Spritz obsession by about eight years, but its relatively nondescript name likely kept it from achieving the same popularity.

“It’s always a frustrating point of contention for me at Stockton when people order a Hugo Spritz,” Miller says. “I’m always like, ‘You mean a St-Germain Cocktail?’ And they’ve almost always never heard of it. It just doesn’t have the spritz name because those weren’t really a thing yet. It might be served with a mint sprig in it, but I’m sorry Gen Z, the drink was created before you were even born.”

Whether you call it a St-Germain Cocktail or a Hugo Spritz, one thing remains certain: St-Germain isn’t slowing down anytime soon — and the Hugo Spritz is showing no signs of fizzling out. Now, other brands are hungry to get in on the action. Since St-Germain’s debut in 2007, a wave of elderflower liqueurs have hit the market, including non-alcoholic versions designed for those abstaining from alcohol. But as far as iconic status goes, it’s unlikely that any will ever achieve the same fame.

“You can tell the success of St-Germain based on the fact that there are all these other companies coming out with elderflower liqueurs,” Miller says. “And, I’m sorry, but none of them are as good as St-Germain. St-Germain is the OG, and that’s that.”

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