AbstractFruit spirits and liqueurs are among the most popular spirit‐based beverages made from fruits such as plums, cherries, melon, apple, citrus and pear. The types of fruits and production methods have a great significance for the quality of the final product. The production process of spirits consists of the following stages: fermentation, distillation and maturation. For this reason scientists started to investigate the composition of fruit spirits and liqueurs in order to monitor the changes occurring in the production process and to control the content of selected compounds negatively affecting human health as well as compounds influencing the flavour and aroma of spirits. Furthermore, studies investigating the authenticity of the products and the identification of their botanical and geographical origin were performed. This article is a summarized description of fruit liqueurs and spirits produced from the above‐mentioned fruits and the characteristics of commonly used techniques for quality assessment of both types of product. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.