Amaros (and digestifs)

All of the bottle labels are so pretty.

bookmarked!

nonino would be a good place to go next, it's grape-based and pretty soft. it's another one that's more, uh, premium priced. trying to think of cheaper bottles that are worth a look but a lot of them share that caramel color flavor that isn't intrinsically bad but makes them a little less interesting on their own or with soda.

It's funny, when I took my cert somm exam nonino was the producer I chose to recommend in case they asked for a grappa or amaro or eau de vie (since it filled 3 categories). I've had that before and ramazzotti, montenegro and then the main ones they sell everywhere like fernet, cynar. My spouse is going to Italy for work and I want him to bring back a couple of amaros but maybe he should go by label.

let me see what else i have on the shelves. i think the next one i'm supposed to buy is nardini but i believe it had some anise notes...

I'm going on one of my Atlanta grocery runs soon (I think) and am worried about how much I'm going to spend in liquor stores. Definitely want to try Cynar and see what uncommon amari are available.

It says nardini has peppermint (not a huge fan of either). And Gentian which looks like a pretty blue flower whose root is used in amaros.

cynar is just so good for everything. And not expensive.

Oh hi. I love Cynar. That's a staple.

The ones I have at home right now are Aperol, Campari, Averna, Sfumato, Meletti, Nonino, dell'Erborista, Cinpatrazzo, and Letherbee Fernet. In the past, I've also owned CioCiaro, Ramazzotti, Montenegro, Zucca, Fernet Branca.

I think of Averna as fairly versatile, kind of a workhorse for cocktail use (it's in a lot of recipes) and also pretty good on its own. Sfumato and Zucca are really great -- they're rabarbaros (made from rhubarb) and have an intense smoky flavor. Meletti is sweeter than most and kind of orangey-chocolatey. I've been enjoying it lately. Dell'Erborista is complex but quite bitter, not my favorite to sip on (it's also rather expensive). Cinpatrazzo is interesting -- it's made from arugula -- but may be hard to find outside of Chicago, where it's made. It's been so long since I had CioCiaro, but in my memory it's kind of similar to Montenegro.

(Guess I should've said "the *other* ones I have at home," because I always have Cynar.)

A cocktail bar in my neighborhood has an Amaro Machine, which is basically the equivalent of an "infinity bottle" of whiskey, where they just periodically add different amari to an ever-changing mixture. Sometimes I try to replicate this at home by pouring a splash of a few different bottles into a rocks glass. I've rarely gone wrong.

lol, a suicide* for grownups. Would try.

*the drink

Cynar and aperol are staples in my house. Not a huge fernet fan but it's probably because it's everywhere where I am (and because of the licorice/mint). Dell'erborista was actually on my list of ones to try since it's made by the same family as Sibilla. I am putting the sfumato and zucca on my list, that sounds really good.

xpost, ha they should make an amaro solera system with that.

This is a pretty good cheat sheet:
https://kindredcocktails.com/info/amaro

So are these posts:
https://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-101-an-introduction-to-italian-amari/
https://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-102-beyond-basic-bitters/
https://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-103-advanced-amari/
https://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-104-continuing-education/

Also see the book Amaro by Brad Thomas Parsons.

I wonder if everything in Italy now is exported.

Nothing prepared me for the sheer volume of Fernet people manage to get through in Argentina.

I have a bunch of digestifs at home but they tend to be Eastern European. Rigas Balsam is an acquired taste. Unicum remains the second most vile thing I’ve ever drunk, after a Danish bitter liqueur whose name escapes me. If anyone comes across anything particularly good from that part of the world, let me know.

Becherovka is delicious and tastes like Christmas tbf.

a Danish bitter liqueur whose name escapes me

Gammel Dansk?

Me: You know what Unicum is made from?
Wife (sighs, has heard me make this joke a dozen times): What
Me: Unicorn cum

I can’t imagine Gammel Dansk is that bad but I think I still have the bottle at home so will look.

Tastes like xmas like speculoos or like pine?

thx for the links jaymc!

Unicum has a bottle that looks like someone graduated from wearing drakkar noir.

I can’t imagine Gammel Dansk is that bad but I think I still have the bottle at home so will look.

We have a bottle of Gammel Dansk in our drinks cabinet as a "gift" from some friends' Danish holiday. Suspect the famed botanicals therein to include dandelion milk, baby shampoo and the stuff my parents painted on my fingernails when I was 5 to stop me biting them. It's a lot worse than Unicum imo.

"Rigas Balsam is an acquired taste"

Oh, I think I bought a bottle of this from the Baltic shop in my town just to see what it was. Brown bottle, like some kind of Edwardian ceramic, not much bigger than a test tube? Or is there something else in a similar bottle? It was either Latvian or Lithuanian, with apologies to any Baltic readers for mixing them up.

I found it OK-ish although the other half found it disgusting (more than Unicum but not as much as Gammel Dansk) and I wouldn't buy a bigger bottle, put it that way.

(Not quite on-topic itt, but my favourite thing from the Baltic shop is the Ukrainian birch vodka - Nemiroff brand, I think. Perhaps I should take that to a vodka thread...)

I was at a friend's place on NYE, and he had not only a bottle of Rigas Balsam but also a Chilean amaro I'd never heard of called Araucano. It was pretty good.

jaymc, thanks for those links -- I'll make copious notes before my trip.

xpost Oh I see that araucano in the grocery store. Because of the label I thought it was a fernet or angosturo. How did you drink it?

Just sipped on a bit of it, neat

I guess the title should've been Amari. Like I learned about the singular of pasta shapes here.

It turns out the offending drink was Piratens Besk, which is neither Danish, nor really an aperitif - it’s a wormwood schnapps kind of thing so apologies both to the Danes and the amaro family.

ok so for edification of myself and possibly others i'm going try to taste one amaro a day when i'm home and post a quick tasting note...i mostly use these guys in cocktails and not as sippers so this should be interesting.

first off the shelf is amaro lucano. aroma is more spicy than herbal. distinct menthol note. doesn't taste minty though, tastes more like warm baking spices. lots of cinnamon. fairly sweet, what i'd call light-medium bitterness. pretty think mouthfeel with that syrupy caramel color thing.

I'm into it ^^^. I'll do the same when I come across something new (maybe I can get the araucano tomorrow when I go grocery shopping).

should have been THICK mouthfeel up there

many xposts, jaymc Do you have the Amaro book. I had thought about getting it over the holidays but I thought it might be cocktail recipe heavy which I wasn't so interested in that part of it.

In late summer 2017 I was sitting at the nice restaurant my boyfriend was working at, having an after-his-shift drink with him, and there was a gregarious man down the bar who was on a date with his wife. The man bought my bf and me a shot that he thought was really "the best": half smoky mezcal, and half Montenegro. It is a delicious shot. We had another after he left and verified that yes, this is a delicious drink, and the night was really nice and we had a great time and the drink kind of became our go-to romantic celebratory drink.

We didn't know what the drink was called and so we just called it a Harrison (the gregarious man's name was Harrison). Our enjoyment of the drink around the few restaurants we enjoy has caught on and there's a place up the street from me that has a Harrison on the menu. It's a good drink! Hard to get good mezcal in Canada but anyway yeah

I really want to try this shot and I don't have either of those things.

not going to drink it as a shot but i'll def try it as a 50/50 cocktail

It works well as a sipper with a single cube of ice, can confirm

I was going to write "I have the Amaro book" but I realised I don't, I have "Bitterman's Field Guide to Bitters and Amari" which is 90% about bitters and the amari section is just a 10-page list of brands with tasting notes.

Did you enjoy the book?

it's fine - I already had one book on Bitters (the Brad Parsons one), this didn't really add much on top of that one

lots of "what if Negroni but with Angostura Bitters" type recipes

I got into Amari via Fernet but it turns out the only Fernet I really like is Branca (I have near-full/going-nowhere bottles of Fernet 1882, Fernet Stock and this weird creature). When I left a previous job the leaving gift from my very thoughtful colleagues was a bottle of Rigas Balsam (also going nowhere)...

All-time favourites are probably: Cynar, Meletti, Suze, Fernet Branca. I have some others lying around (Montenegro, Nonino, Campari, Aperol) that only really see cocktail use.

tbh cocktail use is my main interest here, altho I drink Fernet Branca straight

hmmm, yeah I am not interested in any cocktail book. I don't really make cocktails at home and usually will just drink things with soda water if anything. Even the aperol I think is too sweet if I do it with prosecco/spritz so will just use soda water.

Ha, opposite xpost.

i def buy them for cocktails and pulling off specific recipes, what the heck, they're shelf-stable and have cool-looking bottles. i'm not opposed to drinking them straight and should probably do so more often since the shelving unit i use for liquor is pretty much maxed. need to reorganize it and shift some underutilized stuff to the basement shelves asap.

yeah, I can only focus on so much at once and just don't even want to get into trying to keep a full bar at home. 80% of my space goes to wine with the other 20% basically brown spirits.

many xposts, jaymc Do you have the Amaro book. I had thought about getting it over the holidays but I thought it might be cocktail recipe heavy which I wasn't so interested in that part of it.

Yep. I did buy it for the cocktail recipes, which make up about half the book, but there's also a substantial section (maybe about a quarter of the book) that just lists and describes various amari.

to get your start with stirred cocktails (as 99% of picon cocktails would be) just get a nice long barspoon and strainer and use a regular pint glass.

what is the strainer for? for seeds from a lemon for instance?

1. put your ingredients in the pint glass
2. add ice
3. stir until chilled
4. strain into a chilled cocktail glass

yeah, if you google image boston shaker vs cobbler shaker you will see that you usually need a strainer for the boston shaker set up. I much prefer the pint glass method.

oh ice, yeah that would be nice, we don't normally have it here (it's something I like usa fridges for) but I could make some.

I don't bother straining stirred drinks (beyond removing the ice) but yeah, ice is fundamental to most cocktail recipes (apart from the whole room-temperature scaffa thing)

I had a picon bierre last night, inspired by this thread, the bar I was in just happens to have it on the first page of their menu. It was very nice and took the edge off the overly hoppy beer they made it with.

a picon biere made with a hoppy beer is an interesting idea. i've only ever had it made with, like, kronenbourg.

I'm sure there's a better name than "beer negroni" but beer + Campari + vermouth is lovely

I've only tried with lighter lager-ish beers though

It would probably be better with kronenbourg. As ever I am a grumpy old bastard who things hops should be in balance with the other flavours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zTBmq9_9UA

I was give a bottle of Aromes de Montserrat it’s a on the chartreuse spectrum but tastes more cedary. Definitely not great for drink it on its own, what should I mix it into?

Reading this thread in a fancy resto just having a couple refreshments. ordered fgti's smokey mezcal Montenegro rec. Am fairly uninitiated in mezcal but this is rly lovely!

This thread is akin to the floyd - rules!

Picked up bottles of Zucca, CioCiaro, Branca Menta, and Amaro di Angostura in Atlanta this week. The Ango is amazing -- reviews all talk about cinnamon, but what I get is a luscious allspice liqueur. Branca Menta smells like Scope but is rich on the palate. Thumbs up for all four.

you should make my favorite cocktail that has zucca: https://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/2011/05/throw-gun-2.html

Nice, I had a shot of the Amaro di Angostura in Indianapolis a few years ago and was impressed.

CAD: I'm not a huge fan of egg-white cocktails, but that looks good.

One of my favorite Zucca cocktails is the house cocktail at a place in my neighborhood called Sportsman's Club: https://chicagoist.com/2014/03/24/behind_the_stick_familiarity_brings.php

(I use Campari in place of the Luxardo Bitter. And any high-proof bourbon or rye will do.)

Thanks for those recipes. CAD, that Throw the Gun #2 recipe says 1 egg -- does that mean the whole egg? I thought cocktails just used egg whites.

it is indeed a whole egg. there is an entire category of whole-egg drinks historically known as "flips" from which that drink descends.

Every now and then, the 2 1/2 decent liquor stores in Tupelo will sneak something new and interesting into stock -- got a bottle of Amaro Montenegro today while I was looking for Everclear.

ooh jealous, that was one of my favorites from the Italy trip notes upthread

did you find everclear? It's kind of crazy how much cheaper italian amaros can be in countries outside the US (I mean if you can find them). We took a bottle of aperol from here to the US because it's so much cheaper here.

Everclear itself is sold out everywhere, but one store had plenty of Diesel 190-proof grain spirit. With a name like Diesel, it ought to make some great sanitizer.

i had everclear one night in my life. Never again.

A good and relatively simple Montenegro cocktail is the Cobble Hill:

2 oz rye
0.5 oz dry vermouth
0.5 oz Montenegro

Muddle a couple of cucumber slices in the mixing glass, add other ingredients, and stir with ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.

love cucumber in cocktails.

I'll give that a go -- bought a cucumber this afternoon. (Every other salad ingredient was sold out, but an onion-cucumber salad is fine by me.)

My favourite thing to do with Montenegro: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/01/jackson-cannons-adriatique-aperitif-aperol-orange-juice-amaro-cocktail-recipe.html

cucumber and whiskey seems very unintuitive to me, meaning... I'll have to try it!

Yeah, somehow it works! Also, maybe this is obvious, but the cucumber is strained out of the cocktail. So you're just getting a subtle note of it.

there's a pizzeria near me that has Elisir Novasalus on the menu and I'll often have one if I end up there for a late lunch. It's pretty crazy.

Drinking this: https://www.cocchi.it/en/wines/dopo-teatro-vermouth-amaro/

It's described as a "vermouth amaro" and I guess that's pretty accurate. Reminds me of Bonal, and I haven't had Punt E Mes but I read someone say it tastes similar. Anyway, it's pretty nice straight over ice.

those vermouth amaro things are funny b/c i feel like they're all separated from regular sweet vermouth by a few degrees of bitterness at best. yet i have ruined a cocktail or two using one of them as a straight replacement for a normal sweet vermouth.

mmm unexpectedly found a bottle of Amaro Lucano at a store I don't usually go to, drinking some on rocks now

Prompted/inspired by erstwhilXor Tep, I've been infusing amari with coconut. I have a large tub of unrefined, very coconutty coconut oil that I wasn't sure what to do with, and this works perfectly. I did some Campari first. A Jungle Bird with pineapple rum and coconut Campari is some good-ass drinking, let me tell you.

Now I've moved on to Amaro di Angostura, which I infused for 3 days and strained this morning. The amaro is delicious, not coconutty until the swallow and then BAM, and will pair up well with rum; but what I'm really looking forward to is the banana bread I'm going to make with Angostura-infused coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

what ratio of oil to campari did you use?

About 1:3 or 1:4, 3 days of infusing. I put the jar in the oven on Bread Proof setting for about 30 minutes at first so the oil would liquefy and gave it a swirl several times a day. Since then the weather has gotten cold, but I'm not sure if that will slow the flavor transfer on future batches.

holy shit y'all

https://www.drinkhacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Amaro-tosolini.jpg

the description there doesn't do it justice imo, yes it has a straightforward cola/root beer nose but tasting is is wildly complicated, some fernet minty stuff going on, some of that toasted butter flavor, and something I can't identify that's nut-like? pretty bitter as well, I'm enchanted.

looking for recipes led me to this fascinating page, sending up the bat-signal for WmC

https://inuakena.com/spirit-reviews/amaro-103-advanced-amari/

Oh yeah, the Amaro 101-102-103-104 pages have been a great resource for me. Another good roundup is at Kindred Cocktails — https://kindredcocktails.com/info/amaro

Tosolini sounds good, I might look for that on my next trip to Buster's in Memphis. I lost my mind the first time I went in there, spent 300 bucks before I realized what was happening. Turns out Memphis's liquor stores have Atlanta's totally beat.

i've never seen tosolini here but maybe i'll do a couple of more careful searches.

I've been drinking a lot of 50:50 amaro/vermouth mixes - I guess that would be Milano-Torino riffs? Nice and light.

what should I get next? current stock is:

Campari
Cynar
Aperol
Montenegro
Tosolini
Nonino
Vecchio Amaro Del Capo

I really love Nardini. Also there's a Seattle company that makes an Amaro called Amaricano. Quite tasty!

I went with Sibilla but have never heard of either of those, so thanks!

Right on! I haven't heard of Sibilla so I'll look for it

this was amazing, "For Whom The Sun Rises"

1.5 ounces Varnelli Amaro Sibilla
0.75 ounce grapefruit juice
0.25 ounce lime juice
0.25 ounce Maraska Maraschino (cherry brandy)
0.25 ounce simple syrup
5 drops salt solution (3 parts kosher salt to 1 part water)
Grapefruit peel (placed in the shaker)
shake, double strain, serve at room temp

sibilia is the reigning favorite in the house (followed by cynar).