What does the "triple" refer to in triple sec?

interestingly, it turns out that the more important word in their is “sec” :) sec means dry in French.

tripple sec is a curacao, techinically – it was invented in the lesser antilles (maybe early/mid 1800s, though i’m not sure). super-sweet imitations followed, leading to the creation of the triple dry curacao.. i.e. triple sec.

i’m mostly paraphrasing the article linked, which was interesting. Although i found a couple places that mostly agree on the story.. more so it seems as there there are varying reports on the subject.

Mmmm… oranges… Mmmm…

happy hunting!

e

Interesting indeed.

But what does triple dry mean? Why triple? Why not just call it dry curaçao?

it’s definitely a good question. This is one of the other stories out there:

http://www.combier.fr/anglais/default.htm

these people claim that it was invented by their dude in his candy shop in the mid 1800s..

…sooo, who knows?

:)

Triple refers to the number of times it's distilled.

I guess that makes sense. I’m surprised no one has ever tried selling quadruple sec as a marketing gimmick. Is there a name for twice-distilled liquor?

double sec?

sec bis? encore sec?

bidistillée?

Not in my French dictionary, but gråce à l’internet, a great new word for me. Thanks. Is French your native tongue?

There’s a demi-sec classification/adjective sometimes used for wine/sparkling wine. “semi-sweet”

@kevbo I believe you mean “semi-dry”, or more literally, “half dry”.

@gailcalled Google Translate is my native tongue.

@colog you mean Google Translate the native tongue to me is (in the spirit of google translator)

I’m still very skeptical that it always refers to it being triple distilled. I know it says that in a few places.. but it’s hard to find any french translators that convey that sec, in the sense of “dry” can sometimes refer to distillation. Also.. it seems to me that it could be a misnomer even if it were, as I’m not convinced that triple sec is always triple distilled. in the meantime the line about triple distillation should probably be pulled off wikipedia. ;)

@colog: Vous êtes un homme scrupuleux -

@blue; If you want to have a real howl, translate something at http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and then translate it back into English.

If it’s very dry, and twice distilled, then it’s a double-entendre.