Close

My first book, Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, came out in 2011, and whether it was a case of prescience or serendipity, its publication coincided with a bitters boom that was taking hold in bars across America. As with any popular resurgence, there's bound to be a backlash.   Whether they were housemade blends or new releases...

668

Say hello to Fernet Branca, one of Italy's most famous amari. Made by the Fratelli Branca Distillerie, the alluringly herbaceous liquor with its distinctly bitter taste and spicy finish was invented in 1845. There are other brands of Fernet, but Fernet Branca is the big daddy of them all, and the formula of herbs and spices such as saffron, myrrh,...

1176

by Deidre Schipani   Amaro (singular), amari (plural) is a bitter Italian liqueur whose origins go back centuries to the times of herbal tonics and elixirs. Macerations of herbs, botanicals, seeds, roots, barks and spices were blended into grape brandy or wine bases, then aged, filtered and served in small portions as both an aperitivo or digesti...

1065

I took my first sip of amaro — the bittersweet Italian liqueur — just after dinner on a balmy late-September night in the Piazza dei Madonna del Monti in Rome. It was close to midnight, but my wife and I had just finished dinner with our Chicago-born host and her Roman boyfriend, Lodo.   Lodo suggested a post-meal digestivo procured from a shoebo...

910

by W. Blake Gray   We don't think of spirits as having terroir. Amari are a big exception.  "Amaro" means "bitter" in Italian. These traditional spirits, flavored by roots and herbs, are drunk at the end of a meal in Italy to aid the digestion.   For a long time in the U.S., an Italian restaurant might keep a single dusty bottle in the far reac...

1750