St Maur is an internationally award-winning elderflower liqueur, hand-crafted in south Warwickshire with responsibly sourced ingredients and flavours gathered in ancient family owned woodlands.
It is the creation of William and Kelsey Seymour, Earl and Countess of Yarmouth, who first produced their drink for guests at their wedding reception at Ragley Hall, near Alcester, in 2018.
“We didn’t want to just pour our guests a drink,” explains Kelsey. “We wanted to make them a drink to celebrate the moment with us. So we created a unique elderflower liqueur to mix in a royale cocktail with champagne. That is the drink that became St Maur. It worked so well we decided we would turn it into an artisan drinks business, which we launched in 2020.”
William, who is the eldest son of the Marquess of Hertford, and who grew up at Ragley, continues:
“Making a drink for a friend to enjoy, rather than merely pouring them one, is a great way to enrich the social atmosphere. We’ve made sure St Maur is a versatile drink and we’ll always suggest many accessible, simple recipes to have fun with. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve won the international awards and acclamation that we already have with St Maur. Taste, obviously, is another. You don’t need to be a mixologist to mix a really lovely, sensual drink with St Maur, but if you are then there is much to excite the professional too.”
St Maur is a spirit to savour as a sip on its own or over ice, to use as a hero ingredient in cocktails, and to create easy make-in-the-glass long drinks perfect for brunch with friends, and to serve at parties any time of year.
The drink was rated Best English Floral at the 2021 World Liqueur Awards, and picked up gold at the Las Vegas Global Spirits Awards. It has been awarded a 2 Star Great Taste rating too.
The Seymours chose elderflower to make their liqueur because its perfume and taste evoke in the senses a memory of the English summer, and of halcyon days, and anchors St Maur with a sense of place, which they describe as “a little drop of England’s heart”.
On the label of St Maur bottles are map coordinates which take you to a wild elder grove in the Ragley woodlands in Warwickshire surrounding the Ragley Estate which were passed to William by his grandfather, Hugh 8th Marquess of Hertford.
Here in late spring and early summer William and Kelsey pick the wild elderflowers that go into St Maur (and yes, they do pick the elderflowers themselves). The name, St Maur, revives the surname the Seymour family used in the early middle ages, in a family that traces its lineage back to Jane Seymour, the wife of Henry VIII, and then far and wide beyond that.
Far and wide sums up the ambition the Seymours have for St Maur too. Although rooted firmly in the local community, the sights for the business are very definitely nationwide and international. Whilst William is next in line for the title Marquess of Hertford, which he will inherit one day from his father, he has stepped away from Ragley and life on an aristocrat’s estate, to build a career and an independent business.
But now a father of two boys, this entrepreneur, and the family business he and his wife have started, are staying put in the heart of England, and are now very much part of the thriving food and drink scene in the Midlands.
“There is something very special about the heart of England,” says William. “So it makes sense that we should make St Maur here to offer our consumers a little drop of England’s heart, to share and enjoy wherever they are in the world.”
To view St Maur’s cocktail recipe suggestions visit:
www.drinkstmaur.com/cocktail-recipes/
Further information about St Maur or to enquire about virtual cocktail master classes, visit: www.drinkstmaur.com.
We are very excited to offer our readers an exclusive cocktail created by the Earl, The Secret Garden.
It’s an absolute pleasure to have our own Solihull Times Signature Cocktail St Maur style.
We hope you enjoy making and sipping this over the festive season.
The Secret Garden cocktail
In our secret garden, there is a pear tree.
It is the Yuletide perch of St Maur’s partridge mascot, Percy. It’s a Williams Pear, of course, a varietal which is also known as a “Good Christian” pear, and the inspiration for this sublime champagne cocktail, The Secret Garden.
Moisten the rim of a coupe glass with a little Crème de Violette and frost with caster sugar.
In a Parisian cocktail shaker pour one measure of St Maur, one measure of dry gin, a generous half measure of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a good teaspoon of pear purée.
Shake with ice to mix and cool the ingredients.
Strain into the coupe glass and top up with a good English sparkling wine, or champagne if you prefer.
Decorate and serve.
For the pear purée you could either make your own, buy a specialist cocktail ingredient, or, as we have done here, nip down to the supermarket and buy a pouch of baby food 100% organic pear purée!
It’s delicious.