Sabra liqueur is a chocolate-orange flavored

liqueur A liqueur (; ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of spirits (often rectified spirit) and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-aged beyond ...

produced in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. The primary flavor of Sabra is a rich, bittersweet chocolate. The dense chocolate is cut by the sweet and sour taste of

Jaffa orange The Jaffa orange (Arabic: ‏برتقال يافا), also known by their Arabic name, Shamouti orange, is an orange variety with few seeds and a tough skin that makes it particularly suitable for export. Developed by Arab farmers in the mid-19th ...

s. Slightly chilling Sabra liqueur strengthens the chocolate taste, while slightly warming it brings out the citrus taste. Sabra is 30%

alcohol by volume Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

. The Sabra bottle design is based on a 2,000-year-old Phoenician wine flask found in a Tel Aviv museum. Sabra was developed and introduced in 1963 by

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. Edgar Miles Bronfman (born June 20, 1929 – December 21, 2013) was a Canadian-American businessman. He worked for his family's distilled beverage firm, Seagram, eventually becoming president, treasurer and CEO. As president of the World Jewish ...

, the head of

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the lar ...

, to be an identifiably Israeli liqueur. Its name is a term used affectionately to describe a native-born Israeli Jew, a term derived from the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

name of a

prickly pear cactus ''Opuntia'', commonly called prickly pear or pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae. Prickly pears are also known as ''tuna'' (fruit), ''sabra'', ''nopal'' (paddle, plural ''nopales'') from the Nahuatl word f ...

that grows in Israel. The original liqueur was made from this cactus fruit, but did not succeed and was quickly changed to the successful chocolate-orange product.Tzabar
March 23, 2008, Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective. Retrieved January 16, 2009. There are now two Sabra liqueurs, all produced by

Binyamina Winery The Binyamina Winery ( he, יקב בנימינה) is Israel's fifth largest, producing about 2.8 million bottles of wine annually. History The winery was founded in 1952 by Joseph Zeltzer as Eliaz Winery in the town of Binyamina. In those early ...

, and all are

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

and

kosher for Passover ''Chametz'' (also ''chometz'', ', ''ḥameṣ'', ''ḥameç'' and other spellings transliterated from he, חָמֵץ / חמץ; ) are foods with leavening agents that are forbidden on the Jewish holiday of Passover. According to halakha, Jews ma ...

. The newer products are Sabra Coffee liqueur, launched in 1985, and Grand Sabra, an orange-flavored brandy, launched in 2006. The product is still produced at Binyamina wine's and is available under this name by other manufacturers.

References

{{Reflist Chocolate liqueurs Drink companies of Israel Israeli alcoholic drinks Products introduced in 1963

See also

References