Amaro Means Bitter: Diving into Nature's Medicine Cabinet with Our Favorite Digestif

Class transcript:

Our flights this week. But at any rate, you know, pace yourselves if you're at home. You know, feel no need to finish these all off in one setting and eat something. Eat something. It's a really important part of the Amaro experience. And as much as they are digestifs, they only function that way if you've had something to eat. So not a good class for an empty stomach, this one. With me, as always, Zoe Nystrom. Zoe, say hello to the people. Hey, everyone. Welcome. That is Zoe's map of France behind her in the home studio. But we're going to be focusing really on Italy. That's not to say that Italy has a monopoly on bitter tinctures to close out the meal. You know, this style of drink exists throughout the old world and has spread to the new.

But Italy has really claimed it as its own. And, you know, these drinks from one to the next are hugely significant cultural signifiers for the citizens of the boot. And we want to honor that. And, you know, in as much as any of us love Amaro, Italian Amari were the first love. Should be said, Amari is the plural. I'll probably skip between that and Amaro just because, you know, it sounds a little weird in English. But at any rate. Don't consider me too insufferable if I use the Italian. For those of you at home, we had all sorts of options for this lesson. So as far as the flights went, four different pours, two ounces each, given the higher proof on these ranging anywhere from, you know, 15 to 20% alcohol all the way up to 35 and 40.

We are going to start for the sake of this class with our herbal tinctures. Those are a series of botanical infused vodkas. And we're, you know, trying to really get at the heart of the botanical world that is, you know, the true underpinning for Amaro. The field and forest, very much the pharmacy of the ancient world. And this notion of infusing alcoholic beverages with all sorts of bittering herbs. And, you know, all sorts of fl., clutter and spices and honeys. It is as old as fermentation bit itself. You know. Wine in antiquity very often was flavored with all sorts of herbs, beer as well. Hops itself is just another species of bittering botanical. And once distillation did wonderfully well to Europe. That happened on a large scale beginning years in the longer years.

In the 15th and 16th century, it was only fitting that these medicinal herbs made their way into alcoholic tinctures. And they're very much the Tylenol, the Advil, the Pepto-Bismol of their own time. And people consumed them to settle the stomach. They had all sorts of purported homeopathic properties. And over time, people developed a taste for these elixirs. And they became the original brands. And in every corner of Italy, the unique local recipe kind of reflected what was locally available, as far as the botanicals that were on offer and could be readily accessed for your corner druggists as it were. Big ups to this. Big thanks to the Tyler family joining us from paradise. They are participating from the US Virgin Islands. And we are thrilled to have them with us together for the first time in many moons.

We are thrilled to have you all joining us remotely together virtually in this virtual lecture hall. That coming together really is what Amaro is all about, an excuse to extend. You know, our time, an excuse to, you know, chase away the cares of our work days like, and, you know, linger over these incredibly complex, you know, kind of herbal elixirs. And, you know, kick things off for the sake of our lesson here. We have hopefully a few more folks to join us, but again, if you're at home, there's no way, a wrong way to enjoy these. Just make sure you're eating something along with them. If you're lucky enough to purchase cheese from us, just a quick proviso for the sake of the program, we're going to give you a little bit of a heads up.

We're going to be talking about the Taleggio mousse. There is a burnt strawberry jam situation that is absolutely fabulous, but that is best with the mousse, as well as the semolina crumble. So that burnt strawberry jam and the semolina crumble designed to go with the Taleggio mousse. That's not to say they won't be delicious with the individual cheeses, but they will be most delicious with the mousse itself. So now that we have gotten that PSA over, as always, we're going to kick things off with a bit of verse. I'll kick that off. Earlier in the lesson, so that people don't fear that I've forgotten my love of poetry, you know, to begin proceedings. This is from Eugenio Montale. Originally from Genoa, he kind of settled in Milan.

He's a Nobel laureate in the 70s and writes some of the most beautiful modern Italian poetry that I can think of. This is called 'Meri Giare'. Meri Giare. And I apologize for my English. This is my cartoonish Italian accent. I feel like I am, you know, the Pepé Le Pew, the Speedy Gonzales of Italian. But it does feel like one of those languages that you want to lean into. If I'm leaning in too far for the native speakers, you know, please don't take any offense. I enjoy it. But 'Meri Giare' is a verb form of the Italian word for noon. And what I love is in Italian, it connotes this idea of lingering in the hot summer sun and finding a spot in the shade to kind of while away the hours.

And the Italians have one word for that. Which, you know, is beautiful to me. So this is 'Meri Giare' from Eugenio Montale. To spend the afternoon absorbed and pale Beside a burning garden wall To hear among the stubble and the thorns The blackbirds cackling and the rustling snakes On the cracked earth or in the vetch To spy on columns of red ants Now crossing, now disturbing Atop their miniature heaps To ponder, peering through the leaves The heaving of the scaly sea While the cicada's wavering screech Goes up from balding peaks And walking out into the sunlight's glare To feel with melancholy wonder How all of life and its travail Is in this following wall Topped with the shards of broken bodies. What a beautiful bit of verse.

You know, that kind of speaks for itself. But again, speaks to this idea of, you know, just lingering. The Italians are, you know, some of the world's great lingerers. You know, I always find, you know, having, you know, vacation in Italy that initially I struggle with it. You know, if you sit down at a restaurant in especially southern Italy, you know, there are no quick meals there. You kind of have to adjust your internal clock and, you know, I have trouble getting off of East Coast time. But once you adjust to the new way of life, it is, you know, seductive and entrancing in and of its own, you know, right? You know, to adopt, you know, for a spare moment that notion of mezzogiati. So, without further ado, let's kick it.

Tomorrow is, you know, as old as distillation. So, spirits didn't come to the continent until really the Arab conquerors of Spain brought the science with them beginning in the 8th century. It didn't become widespread in the 12th, but the modern alembic still was only developed also by Muslims in Turkey, you know, beginning in the 15th, 16th century and that's when spirits, fortified alcohols became available across the continent and they were a boon to druggists, to herbalists, to amateur doctors everywhere because all of these bitter herbs and digestives that, you know, had filled, you know, the medicine cabinets of the ancient world became more potent as tinctures, as, you know, these elixirs, as these infusions in alcohol. Alcohol has this remarkable ability to extract flavor from all things, but particularly from these bitter herbs, and that is what Amaro celebrates.

And in crafting Amaro, you start with an infusion of these herbs in spirits. The spirit itself is typically then combined; it's either diluted with water or with wine, or with, you know, actually grape must for a product that's called mistel. And then some sugar is added. So originally, these medicines would have been more acrid and less sweet, but as they became commercial products, sugar was typically added so that, you know, they became more balanced. The adding of sugar makes the bitterness more palatable and also, you know, makes the spectrum of flavors, you know, much more readily apparent and, you know, multifaceted for us in our enjoyment of these drinks. Very often, you know, you'll notice these are caramel-toned elixirs, and it should be said that caramel color can be added artificially, but it can also be added through, you know, either cane sugar or caramel syrups to these individual products.

It is possible that we have some Italians in our midst, Francesca Nonino and Leo Pasquale Vena of Amaro Nonino and Amaro Lucano, we're going to hope to join us, so if you're in the audience, please don't hesitate, as I discuss your products, to join us. Hi, guys! Oh, brilliant! Francesca! Yeah, that's me! That's me, sorry! Hi, buona sera! Thank you so much for joining us! It's my pleasure, I'm just sorry that I'm not prepared, I don't have any, like, any of the old labels with me because I'm at my house, I'm not in the distillery where we keep all the old bottles of the legacy of Amaro Nonino, but thank you for inviting me tonight! For you it's not tonight, sorry, for me it's tonight. It's already my bedtime in here.

Oh, come on, what kind of Italian are you, Fred? It feels like a very early bedtime for an Italian. Yeah, but I'm from the north, you know, so in the north we go to sleep early, and also in here, I don't know how are things over there, but we, after with this COVID thing, we actually cannot go out after 10pm. No discos. No discos for us. But it's always Amaro Nonino time, I only have a little empty bottle. At least we can drink at home. Oh, great, great. So, Francesca, we're gonna start with your products, and I made these tinctures with a lot of the herbs that traditionally go into traditional Italian Amari, and I thought it would be fun to talk about the individual ingredients.

So we're actually, I don't know how many of these are in yours, so I know that you use gentian, you traditionally use cinchona, and we have vermouth and angelica roots. I don't know if those figure. So like, I don't want to disappoint anyone, but actually the Amaro Nonino recipe is a I had a very lazy Sunday where all of a sudden Oh, sorry, Caitlin. So, Francesca, we had a rogue commenter there. You were saying? I was saying that actually Amaro Nonino recipe is a secret family recipe. Nobody except from the family knows it. Even for me, like, I'm working officially in the family company since well, unofficially since all my life, but officially since four years, and I had to wait two years to be able to learn the secret family recipe, and I can tell you it was a really big deal.

I don't know if any of you is familiar with the Nonino family, but we are a family of distillers since 1897, and now we are mostly a female-led family distillery, and I remember that day, like it was yesterday, my grandmother called me in her office, and she was like, Francesca, I need to talk with you. I was like, okay, what did I do? And she called me in her office, and she was sitting there with my mom and my auntie by her, and they were like, we talked, and we decided that now you can know the recipe. I was like, really? But my grandma looked at me, and she was like, 'but you cannot tell anyone, not even your I was like, but I'm not even married!

It's a really, really big deal, and honestly, for what I'm, for what I learned about Amaro, I think that Amaro Nonino is one of the best Amaros to start to learn about this beautiful Italian liqueur. This is the Amaro flight I didn't buy. So let's start with, I'm going to start with each of these botanicals quickly and introduce them, and then, you know, feel free to add what you like. If you're, you know, kind of familiar with the individual botanicals, we will neither confirm nor deny whether they are actually in the Amaro Nonino. I cannot tell anything. We'll talk about the individual botanicals, because, you know, the individual ingredients are really interesting, and, you know, they have all this history of their own, which is really fascinating, and then, you know, my favorite thing about Nonino is that there's this added layer of history of this beautiful spirit that you use for the product itself, and then you age everything in barrique thereafter,

so it's a very artisanal product in a way that is somewhat unique for Amaro. Yeah, but also, like, the original recipe of Amaro Nonino was Amaro di carne, and it was created by my great grandfather, Antonio Nonino. It was already the third generation of Nonino family, so it was a distiller, and already at that time it was really common, we can say, for Italian families to have their own family recipe. As you said before, Amaro is something that is really local. We can say that every region has its own recipe that was based from the botanicals they could find. But my great-grandfather did something that was different from what other families were making with Amaro, because instead of using just any type of grain neutral spirit, he decided to use something that he was making since many generations, because it was already the third generation.

So he decided to use as a base the grappa he was making, and that was something that gave a completely different type of kick to our Amaro, because it's, I don't know if you're familiar with grappa, but it's not a neutral spirit, it's really aromatic, a lot of flavor, fruity flavor, but also consider that we are in the northeast of Italy, I see that you show a little map before, we are in the northeast of Italy, we are, yes, Friuli, Venezia, Giulia, the yellow one, great! We are in the yellow one, and so because we are at the border with many different countries, we can say that Friuli, Venezia, Giulia was kind of a melting pot of different cultures, and so Amaro di Cagna was already this beautiful melting pot, instead of having just the botanicals that you were able to find locally, it also had spices and roots that were coming from completely different cultures, from really, really far away, because we are just one hour from Venice, and that gave a completely different type of richness to our Amaro. And then, like my, sadly my great-grandfather got killed during the Second World War, so my great-grandmother was the one that started to lead the distillery, and she became the first female master distillery in Italy. And she took over the recipe of Amaro Nonino, and because before being a master distiller, she was having her own little restaurant, she had a really beautiful knowledge of the botanicals, of how to balance the different types of taste, so she took over the Amaro di Cagna recipe, because at the beginning in 1933 it was Amaro di Cagna, and she changed it a little bit, making it more beautiful, more balanced, she added a little bit of the botanicals, and she took like she, I don't, sorry my English sucks at this time!

It's much better! Francesca, it's much better than my Italian! I don't know about that, but she decreased a little bit of the other, making it, oh thank you so much, Janice, for supporting me; I feel a little bit weird, but like. And she decreased a little bit of other ingredients to make it more elegant, but what made completely the difference was the fact that my great-grandmother, not my great-grandmother, sorry, my grandmother and my grandfather; thank you Frank. In 1984, they created the first grape distillate. So instead of just using the pomace, or the juice of the grape, they distilled the whole thing. And in 1990, 1987, they put the grape distillate into aging. So my mom and my aunt decided to change the grape, the distillate.

The Grappa distillate that was in the Amaro, with the grape distillate aging Barrique, and that was completely made the difference. One thing that I love about the label, I don't know if you can see it, is the fact that there is, in the middle, the idea capa that represents the medicinal properties of the Amaro that was the main purpose when it was created, to use the botanicals that people thought they had medicinal properties, and the name Quintessencia, I think it's really beautiful because Quintessencia no, I'm not saying that this is medicinal, but I'm saying it seems like I need to have it, yes, like, it helps, honestly, to have Amaro in a little bit every day, it's really helpful for your spirit and your palate, but no, but like, at the beginning the Amaro was created because people wanted to use the herbal and spices that people thought had medicinal properties, like to help digestion, for cold, they even used to give a little bit of Amaro to women that just gave birth, because they thought that gives strength to people to fight the cold, but like Quintessencia means to reach the alchemic perfection because this is a family recipe that was passed from generation to generation and we thought that this, The fact that every Nonino generation changed it a little bit, really made the difference, making it now something that we're really, really, really proud of, and it's considered one of the most balanced Amaro, and the best Amaro to start the Amaro journey, we can say. Yeah, and I think for people that are new to Amaro, it's not a very Amaro Amaro, it has just enough of that bitterness, but not too much, and you spoke to some of those medicinal herbs; we have here Angelica, and I'm going to share some pictures of the individual herbs, Angelica is really interesting, Angelica, it looks a bit like if you look at it, it's actually a beautiful plant, and it's a member of the same family as carrots, and it's related to parsley and dill and hemlock; it has this kind of barky woodiness; it is historically a digestive aid, and you know, you talked about the use of these products as medicine, and a lot of that predates modern science, but a lot of that was confirmed, ultimately, by modern scientists, and there are certain chemicals that are scientifically aids to digestion, and empirically it should be said that a lot of those bitter flavors do stimulate digestion for people, and that is another empirical reason that folks will drink these. I love Angelica because it's a little less bitter to start with among the tinctures, and these are all vodka-based tinctures, so if you're drinking these and then going to the Nino at home, you can get a sense of how much of a difference there is going from a neutral grape spirit like vodka to going to something like grappa, and then another second one that we have here is chinchona, and chinchona is hugely important to both a lot of different vermouths and also to amari. Chinchona is the bark of a South American tree, and it was used by ultimately by Europeans, by the Spanish that conquered South America, to ward off malaria, but it had been used by the Incas for centuries, if not thousands of years before that as a cure for fevers, headaches, and problems with digestion. Chinchona is hugely fascinating. It is called the fever tree. It has this more warming, spicy quality to it. It's certainly more bitter than something like the Angelica, but a little less bitter than the gentian or the wormwood that we're going to come upon.

The gentian should be said one of my favorites. Francesca spoke to this notion of Italy being at the crossroads of different trade routes and Friuli in particular being sandwiched between central Italy and the more alpine regions and the Balkans. Gentian is hugely important throughout the mountains of central Europe. It's actually very difficult to cultivate in a modern garden. It grows wild. It's typically harvested after four to five years. It has this amazing, grassy, profoundly bitter quality. Gentian's amazing. It's very green. Gentian from higher altitudes is prized. Typically, the level of bittering compounds is very throughout the year and tends to be higher in the spring. The harvest is actually pretty strictly regulated, particularly in France, to protect the gentian itself. Then the last one you have in your glasses is wormwood.

Wormwood is particularly important, particularly in Amaro Lucano. They use several different kinds of wormwood. Wormwood gets a bad rap in absinthe. It gets a bad rap for a chemical constituent that on its own can induce seizures, but you'd have to drink so much absinthe at that point that you would be already six feet under. Wormwood grows really well in gardens. It's actually pretty beautiful and is actually equally a very good digestive aid. I find it's a little less green in terms of its set of flavors than gentian and a little more sharply bitter in and of its own right than the other botanicals that we were dealing with. There are other really important bittering agents that I didn't get to. Chinese rhubarb, bitter orange, citrus is hugely important in Amaro.

It is kind of the bridge between the sweeter flavors and the more bitter ones. If you're eating cheese at home, we have all sorts of jams. Those citrus jams are really perfect with Amaro. Francesco, we didn't talk about the grappa. You feel free to divulge as many of the family secrets as you like, but can you describe the production process for this Amaro? You start with all sorts of herbs. How do you go about infusing them and ultimately aging the final product? I have to say that there are two different types of making process for Amaro Nonino. There are both infusion and maceration. For what it concerns, the process of making Amaro, I can tell you really little and I'm sorry because I want to leave. Your grandmother.

I want to leave and all of this is registered so you can use this again. We can hit pause on the recording. What really makes the difference is the fact that we do a really long infusion and maceration process, and the fact that all of this is involved with a really low temperature to be able to preserve not only the aromatic characteristic and the taste of the botanicals but also the colors of the botanicals, and also, of course, the color of our Amaro is also given by the fact that we use this aged grape distillate. And I think it's amazing the fact that our aged grape distillate is aged for really long, even for more than four to five years. We have an aging cellar for grape distillate since 1987.

So we try to make a blend of the grape distillate to be able to give the notes both a kind of smokiness to it but also this beautiful exotic fruit notes. And I hope that all of you can come to visit our distillery and enter also in our aging cellar, because it's beautiful. But like when you enter in the aging cellar of grape distillate you can really smell the Amaro Nonino type of smell that you smell in the glass that give these mango notes, these papaya notes but also licorice, chocolate. And one thing that I love so so much is the fact that I was saying that in the chat but like Amaro Nonino we can say that have a type of tasting profile. Sorry, I sometimes I try to invent my word if I'm not good.

Tasting profile that is both fruity, herbal and spice. But because of that, like even if you just do like a two-kind of ingredient cocktail, like ice and a slice of orange on or some fresh mint leaves, you can really highlight one of these characteristics over the other one. So like, if you put the fresh orange slice, you can really smell like Sicily, because I can tell you three of the ingredients that we use in our Amaro Nonino are lime, lemon, and oranges from Sicily, and you can really feel like you are in Amalfi Coast. But like, if you add the mint leaves, you really highlight the herbal part, but always with freshness. And I read that someone was talking about paper plane. Yes, we need to start convincing Bill to come visit us.

All of you are welcome to come. Please text me. I can write you my email after that. But like, you need to come to visit us. Also, because you need to come and taste the Amaro Nonino just from the barrique. It's an amazing experience. But, like I have to say that I'm really glad someone of you talked about the paper plane because I think actually that the paper plane cocktail was the one that made Amaro Nonino popular in the United States. It was created by Sam Ross and he decided to create this cocktail because one of his dear friends brought to him a bottle of Amaro Nonino and he fell in love with it. And he decided that he wanted to make a cocktail that was able to highlight the Amaro Nonino characteristics.

The fact that the thing that he sent me that he loved really much about Amaro Nonino was the fact that it has a beautiful bittersweet balance so that you don't need to add any type of syrup but you still get the bitter type of notes. And if you don't know Paper Plane, please taste one because it's an amazing, amazing cocktail. Sorry, but I feel like I'm talking too much. Sorry, Bill. No, no, no worries. You're great. We're thrilled to have you on. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Cocktail Paper Plane, it's an amazing kind of modern classic drink that has whiskey, Aperol, and Amaro Nonino in it. And it's very much a new classic, and it's the kind of thing that in the space of a decade has become a new standard in a really awesome way.

It's a wonderfully both refreshing and multi-faceted drink, and I think it embodies a lot of what you said, and a lot of what I love about Amaro in the first place, which is that these are drinks that you can linger over. And part of the reason that they're fun to linger over is because they're so complex, and depending on how you serve them or how you add to them, they reveal a different aspect of their personality. And I actually read, So we had a lot of folks coming into this lesson ask how should they serve these various Amaro that we're featuring and I read that you and some other folks in your family actually prefer Nonino over ice with a lemon wedge as opposed to just drinking it neat. Sorry?

Do you prefer Nonino over ice or do you like it, you know, neater? Okay, I'm the type, I think that you will judge me but I like Amaro Nonino on everything, like it's incredible but like, if I want to be honest and this is my suggestion for an Italian suggestion for all of you guys, if you really want to appreciate the quality of a product, you need to taste it um how do you say like a normal temperature like room temperature, yes room temperature because a lot of times, at least in Italian commercials, they give you suggestions like to taste Amaro frozen, when you freeze something, it's because it tastes bad and so you're able to cover bad taste or bad smell, in Calabria they drink very cold I didn't say anything, I just said that when you freeze something, you're able to cover bad taste and bad smell, so you're really able to appreciate the quality of a product when it's room temperature, but of course, I think honestly that chilled is the best way, so with a little bit of ice and a slice of orange is my favorite, but we also love to do like hot preparation for Amaro. I was saying in the chat that we use Amaronino also for example in chicken broth or for doing like a punch and it's delicious um, but maybe Francesca, do you drink do you just drink the broth? The broth with Amaronino, yes Wow, that sounds delicious Yeah, it is delicious, but also I love to like one of my favorite things, but I know that in the United States it's not popular right now but I love Mojito I love Mojito Throw away the Ramputa Amaronino it's the best Mojito in the, yes Yeah, of course Now, Zoe do we have any questions for Francesca?

She's doing a very good job of monitoring the chat, so that's something I struggle with Francesca, I'm not good at chatting and talking. Do we have any questions that haven't been addressed yet, Zoe? Sorry Francesca, how else do you use Nonino in cooking? Sorry? How else do you use Nonino in cooking, in the kitchen? So, like, of course we do sorbet most of the time as I said, popsicle. But also, like, a lot of food pairing. For example, I don't know if you're familiar with Lindt chocolate. The method chocolatier of Lindt suggested to eat 75% or 85 or 80% dark chocolate paired with Amaretti and it's amazing in a lot of different types of chocolate desserts, it's amazing. But yeah, we can say that for salty recipes the main thing is the chicken broth.

But I have to say that I was impressed because one time but I did not taste it, so I cannot tell you if it's good. So I saw that there was this one person that used Amaretti to flambà when do you say the word flamb� To flambà prawns in the pasta but I didn't try that so I cannot tell you if it's good or not. Chocolate brownie, yes and also, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Ice cream chocolate chocolate ice cream, sorry not ice cream, chocolate Gelato! exactly it should be said Francesca we set everybody up with cheese and citrus preserves to go with their Amari tonight too, so that is a personal favorite, I love citrus jam and Amarnonino and it's actually a good you can use Amarnonino in citrus oh my god, so like citrus jam and which type of cheese?

All cheese I actually like, with the lighter ones I kind of like the saltier cheeses and I sometimes like the darker Amari with like softer, unctuous cheeses but like hard, salty cheese oh my god, you just made me realize this thing one time, because I'm the social media manager also for Amarino so if someone puts something on Instagram, I'm always the one that sees the tag and stuff like that, and there was this woman from England that made a raspberry jam recipe using Amarino and I was like, oh my god it looks delicious, she shipped this raspberry jam to me, and I can tell you, it was unbelievable even raspberry jam with Amarino so like, most of the recipes are sweet recipes, but now I'm really intrigued with this match between citrus jam and cheese, it sounds amazing yeah, it's really good Joe, what else you got?

Could you speak a little bit about how the distillation process is different for Grappa than it is for other spirits? It is different for your grappa than other grappas too, yes. Well, can I say one thing without sounding an asshole? But we were we won the prize as spirit brand of the year by one in 2001; we were the first Italian distillery to win it and the first grappa brand, so we were really, really happy about that. It was at the beginning of this year, it was the 27th of January, 2020, and it was me, my aunt, and my grandmother, and it was amazing; it was the last trip I did this year, it was, yes, then lockdown, but like, yes, at least I was in America in February, but I missed to come to America so much, guys, really.

But like, yeah, we can say like that sadly, for what concerns Italian laws; Italian laws do not protect the quality in the distillation enough, so like, What is the main difference from our distillery to any other distillery is the fact that we are the only distillery that has the structure to be able to distill fresh. Why I'm saying that, but this is from what is concerned with grappa and I think that maybe I can be a little bit confusing for you, I don't know if you wanted to know what was the difference between our distillery, yeah, let's say like, so most you know, I think most people know that grappa is like Marc in the sense that traditionally in Italy it was a spirit of frugal farmers, so it was a way to reduce you know, pomace and you all have taken it and you've made it, you know, a primary product as a product, you know Something that's secondary and that's because you use not only do you use the great you know stems and skins but you also use the juice this so like nobody uses the stems when we make grappa when they make grappa you do not distill stems you distem the grape and like if you distill also the juice that is grape distillate it's not grappa when you distill grappa you only distill the solid part of the grape so it means that is the skin the residual pulp and a little bit of the seeds the main thing that Nonino did for grappa was the fact that like I don't know I don't want to I don't want to steal too much of your time but like the main thing was that in the past, grappa was considered just made with the leftover it was it was called the fire water that was able to burn away even hunger so it was just like, a really really poor product, but Nonino, my grandfather especially, understood that if you treat the pommas rightly, you were able to make something that was a way of capturing the essence, the soul of the vineyard and put it in the glass so consider that in Italy the average distillery has six pot still my grandfather at that time that was more than 50 years ago almost 60 years ago he distilled not distilled, sorry he built a distillery with 24 pot stills why that? Because he wanted to be able to distill the pommases as soon as it was pressed, so instead of stocking the pommases because in Italy you're able to stock the pommases between the end of August till the end of the next year or until June of the next year, he was completely against that and he was distilling day and night during the harvest to be able to distill fresh.

He always had a type of almost fraternal connection with the vineyard that were giving him the pommases because he wanted to be able to collect the pommases as soon as they were pressed, and if a winery makes good wine you can see that from the pommases because if the pommases are too dry, too Much pressed the winery will have horrible wine, and you'll never be able to make good grappa out of that. But if the pommas has been gently pressed, the grape has been gently pressed; the wine will be much sweeter, much aromatic, and you're gonna be able to make amazing grappa. And consider that from that day on. Now we have a distillery that has 66 employees who work only for eight weeks per year, only during the harvest, 24 hours a day, 27 days of the week.

In fact, this year because I was supposed to come to the United States for six weeks, I didn't come. In fact, my English got so much worse, but we did a night distillation event and if you're interested. Into that, we can organize it. And this next August or next September, we can do this, so we lost you, Francesca. Thank you, Antoinette. I didn't know a lot of that; that's brilliant! I like the idea that if you want to make good grappa, you have to make good wine first. Now, what are your other favorite Italian Amari? no like uh oh let me think um hmm i don't know honestly all right so we're gonna we're gonna take you we'll take you through a world tour oh yes okay so we have chia charo so chia charo so if lucano is chia charo so um lucano um is from basilicata um so i'm going to pull up the map of uh of italy and we'll we'll talk through some of these um and again what i uh again my my favorite one of my favorite things about amari is that um you know it's like a drinkable map of italy and uh italy is a hugely diverse country italy didn't exist as a um a unified country until um the late 19th century and you know uh the venetos is very different than sicily and basilicata is very different than lazio um so uh lucano um actually comes from uh an old latin term uh for uh basilicata um and uh it has um all sorts of ingredients in the mix it's different than um than onino in the sense that it's made with neutral grain spirit as opposed to um you know a grape or grappa uh you know distillate Uh, but um, it has Angelica root, um, it has Gentian and it has many different types of Wormwood in the mix and it is more, you know, profoundly bitter uh than uh than onino uh certainly um, and distinctly woody here uh, the Chia Charo is really cool so it's from uh just outside of Rome um, from Lazio and um, the Chia Charo is very like citrus-forward in a in a really lovely way um, so has all sorts of you know uh bitter and sweet orange um, you know kind of like these notes of dark chocolate Gentian is a known ingredient um, and again you know these recipes um are you know very much like Francesco's in the sense that um, you know, grandma Will disown you, uh, Grandma will probably off you before, uh, you get a chance to reveal, uh, the recipe for anyone we love. Um, amara chia chiara because we use it at revelers hour to spike, uh, beer. Um, so you add a little bit of, uh, we add an ounce of chichara to Miller HighLife and it's absolutely delicious. Um, but it is equally delicious on its own and is actually a good substitute for American Cone. Um, which is a famous, uh, French, uh, kind of, uh, orange, uh, liqueur. Um, but, uh, it is, um, really balanced. Um, you know, kind of like Nonino.

Um, you know I think the flavors are a little more caramel-inflected, uh, than Nino, but, uh, beautiful, nonetheless. And then, uh, we have del capo, um, we have the peasant night crew in the mix, so we do have some, uh, Francescos, we have some, uh, Italians joining us, and we have, uh, you know, uh, second-generation Calabrians. And Del Capo is a hugely important Calabrian product. What I love about the capo they, uh, demand that it be served chilled. I made the mistake of serving del Capo to a Calabrian woman at room temperature once and, um, you know, I was lucky to escape with my life, uh, from the restaurant, uh, we had to chill it for her on the spot, uh, we did the best that we could, but, um, it's very hot in, uh, Calabria, so it's fitting that their local product is served very chilled.

tangerines um are a known um ingredient as are all sorts of other uh sweet orange bitter orange uh juniper licorice chamomile um it's a very delicate um amaro and i i like it at room temperature um i think it's delicious room temperature i think it passes francesca's you know has to be enjoyed at room temperature test but um it's it's very refreshing uh when it's served uh chilled and um you know citrus is really an interesting ingredient in in amari and um you know i think it's a really good ingredient and i think it's a really good ingredient and i think it's a really good ingredient and i think it's a really good ingredient can't grow citrus in um you know in friuli you know there aren't you know um you know lemon lemon and you know orange groves in northern uh italy it's too cold but uh there are you know certainly in in uh calabria um and uh the vecchio mar the capo the capo family started off actually distilling on mount etna and then um are you going oh thank you uh sorry sorry no we so we usually francesca we usually have a chicken no no worries no we so we we traditionally we traditionally close out our lessons with a a a toast uh do you have a toast that you usually deliver with uh nonino it could be in italian uh we are the typical really loud italian Family, so like normally we do something like okay one more one more time one more time, okay one more time one more time, yeah that's just beautiful, so yeah, thank you, thank you so much for joining us, Francesca, it's such a pleasure to try your amaro. So we promise we'll we'll visit all of us all of us again, bye bye, um, so uh, the the Capo, um, uh, you know I think you know that that juniper that licorice in particular, um, you know emerge often, that licorice, um comes from uh, star anise, um, which is a really fascinating uh, you know spice, and um, and um, and um, and um, and um, and uh, is the the source of A lot of licorice flavors in, uh, many of the digestifs, um, you know that have that, you know, more kind of, uh, profound licorice bite, um, I, I love this one, I think it's, it's really lovely, um, you know, chilled.

I lament that it's not more widely known, um, than, uh, than it is, and then, uh, that brings us to, uh, Montenegro, um, Montenegro is, uh, it's from the north, um, from, um, it is the most, uh, widely consumed, uh, amaro in Italy, um, and, uh, it should be said that Montenegro is named after the second wife of Vittoria Manual, um, who was the first, uh, king of unified Italy. I don't know what his first wife got, I feel like the first, uh, the first wife always gets, um, you I know, you know, run over um there's a movie about it, but uh the second wife gets an Amaro. It is a delicious drink, it's a delicious drink, it's a delicious drink, it's a delicious drink.

Um, sadly just got bought out by Monarch, which is an evil uh international beverage brand and changed the fucking recipe uh for Montenegro and um, we did a side-by-side of the old and the new and it's just not as good as it used to be. It's still delicious. Uh, known ingredients include orange peel, vanilla, and eucalyptus. Um, uh, it was hailed uh by none other than um, a very famous uh contemporary Italian poet, Gabriella Nuncio, called it the liquorice. of virtues um uh but it is less virtuous than it used to be it should be said but montenegro is great it's not unlike nanino in the sense that it is a very useful kind of introduction to amaro um it makes a great mixer it plays well with friends and um a lot of these more bitter amari that we're going to get into uh they tend to be uh more aggressive louder voices at the party and they don't you know play quite as well uh with friends and cocktails or if they do uh they only really do it when they're in a party and they're in a party and they're in a party and do so a quarter ounce at a time so you know i always enjoy these drinks i think They're, you know, sufficiently multifaceted to um, you know, thrive on their own but, you know, I equally um, you know, feel like um, you know, people enjoy playing with them uh in cocktails uh, you know, it is; it is; should be said though, it's easier to play with Nino and Montenegro than it is with um, uh, Elisir and Swamato which we'll, we'll get into in a second and, um, Montenegro, equally has these lovely goofy um ads, featuring these James Bond-like Italian figures, you know, uh, completing um all sorts of secret agent man missions and then, uh, throwing back Montenegro at the end of it; we should all be so lucky, Ramazzotti. um up next is uh the oldest um branded italian amaro so ramazzotti was the first to take you know this local tradition and francesca spoke to it you know her family was the first to take this local tradition and francesca spoke to it you know her family always had um you know a their own recipe um and you know historically a lot of these recipes were codified um by clerics um you know but uh entering the modern era um you know some of those recipes were sold and then you know some of those recipes just um you know were um you know gradually subsumed or you know uh were co-opted um by restaurateurs uh ramazzotti developed um at a restaurant near the uh opera house in milan um as a companion to coffee and then um occasionally this restaurant was infamous for replacing its coffee uh with uh its uh amaro which is fascinating to me because i would think that the um coffee would be less expensive than the amaro but maybe in that era uh the amaro um was less expensive who knows um ramazzotti is easy um you know it's got this like coca-cola like uh vibe um so uh what do you love about you know montenegro ramazzotti um uh you know as as products and as a former bartender um yeah i mean i love the ramazzotti because of that like what you're saying coca-cola root Beer, um, tip to it, um, I think that there's, you know, it's very accessible. You still get that bitterness there, some like espresso bean and you know a little bit more of those like spicier baking spices but it's still in the baking spice realm.

Montenegro has just always been, uh, very accessible, I think, like baby's first amaro. Um, I think I brought to our audience yesterday, Canola, um, justché campagna. But this time I'm pouring it over gelato as well. Um, I feel like you can play a lot with Montenegro particularly because it has that like Christmas cake situation. Do you want to go into Braulio and Fernet? Oh wow, we're not gonna Save my favorite for 'uh' and I need to pour myself out a little bit of the paroleo before we move on Zoey, but um, for the sake of Ramazzotti, um, I wanted to uh enumerate some of Francesca's known ingredients, because um, I feel bad for uh enumerating some of Francesca's known ingredients, because I was quoting uh Marcia Jean-Paul, without staying in Toronto, I never did four years; I even had five years; I didn't have the entire month for even starving getting crazy expecting mid-elderly women quoting from a book about Amari, and the ingredients I'm quoting from are actually known to be in her secret recipe. So I feel like I compromise state secrets. But at any rate, known ingredients for Amazote include bitter orange, cardamom, clove, galangal, which is, you know, kind of like a Southeast Asian spice, not unlike ginger, myrrh, which feels hugely seasonal, very on brand for the holiday season with myrrh. Myrrh is a resin. It's hugely fascinating. It derives from the spiny tree in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. This is a harvesting of myrrh, and it's a sap that flows from this kind of shrub-like tree and hardens, and people then collect. And then if you're a wise man, you know, you, you know, take your ass to Bethlehem, and, you know, you honor the newborn Savior with your gifts of myrrh.

But if you're an Italian, you infuse it into, in this case, Ramazzotti, starring a sweet orange, equally known ingredients. Ramazzotti is, is another one of those. I think it's just a great all-purpose Amaro to have at a bar, and it is one that definitely plays well with, with friends. All right. Many of you don't know this product. If you did, it would sell better than it does. It's Brugalio. It is the greatest Amaro, in my opinion, in existence. And it gets at this, you know, regional difference, you know, sets of differences that you have, you know, in Italy. So this comes from Valtellina. You might notice this little, you know, coat of arms. That is the coat of arms of the House of Savoy, which was this, you know, kind of royal family, this empire that kind of, it spilled over the border between France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Obviously, they no longer hold sway in this corner of the world, but formerly Lombardy was associated with House of Savoy, so that's why it's on there. You're in the mountains. Known ingredients for the sake of Braulio include gentian, juniper, wormwood, yarrow, and it is aged for two years in Slovenian oak. And this is where that, like, tincture exercise that we did earlier, I think, is really fascinating, because if you have those available and you have Braulio, taste the Braulio, and then revisit the gentian tincture, the wormwood tinctio; And I think you'll be able to tease those out as individual ingredients in the Braulio. And then that whole thing of barrel aging is magical. I think it's magical for the sake of the Nonino, and it's, in my mind, like, even more magical for the sake of the Braulio.

You're dealing with Slovenian oak, which comes from Croatia, and a two-year aging process. Braulio actually was sold to the Campari Group, and they did, you know, they sold it to the Montenegro. They did, kind of like Montenegro, they claimed they didn't change the recipe, so does Montenegro. Everybody knows it's total bullshit. But it emerged mostly intact, and it is still just a gorgeous product. Zoe, what do you love about Braulio? I like that it has that menthol kick and all of that bitterness that Fernet does, but it doesn't have the aggression of Fernet, nor does it have that ash-pray, you know, that tar, eucalyptus, threw up in a vat. Yeah, I call it candy canes and, like, last night's bad choices, you know, for the sake of Fernet.

Fernet Branca is certainly the most famous, I think, Amaro of its ilk. It should be said that Fernet is a category, so Fernet is a subcategory of Amari. Fernet Branca is not the only Fernet, it is just the most famous one. Fernet's kind of an ambiguous category as such, but northern Italian Amari, and they come together around this minty flavor profile, all of them. Known ingredients for Fernet Branca: aloe, ferox, which we haven't discussed, but is another alpine herb, bitter orange, cardamom, chamomile, cinchona, myrrh, alert, laraha, which is a type of bitter citrus native to Curacao. Rhubarb root, which we haven't, you know, really discussed at all, but will be important for the sake of one of our later ones. Zadoria, which actually comes from Oceania. There's saffron in here.

I love the tasting notes from the Amaro book. Strong and medicinal, with top notes of eucalyptus. Elements of candy cane, mint toothpaste, and mentholated cough drop. And I do like to say that, you know, these northern Italian, you know, products they have, you know, that minty, that, you know, alpine woodiness, I think, you know, Braulio's is just elevated. You know, I like to say that idiot plant. Bartenders drink Fernet Branca, you know, erudite psalms drink Braulio, which makes me sound, you know, as Francesca would say, like a total asshole. But, you know, I'm comfortable leaning into that for the sake of Braulio. And, you know, this particular flight, you know, from, you know, I think the Montenegro through the Fernet gives you a sense of the spectrum of bitterness on these drinks.

And they really do range from, you know, not bitter in the least for the sake of Montenegro to much more profoundly. So, for the sake of Fernet Branca. Zoe, do you have any more questions from the commentary before I move on to the Dear God, Why? Bitter, you know, kind of section of our Amaro class? Yeah, a few really great questions. Could you talk a little bit about how the botanicals are different for Amari as in terms of gin botanicals? Oh, that's great. There's a lot of overlap there. And there's juniper was used, for instance, in, I did an article on Juniper. I did an article on Juniper. I did an article on Juniper. There's all sorts of research on botanicals in the mix here. But the Braulio itself actually has Juniper in it.

And I think, you know, I love Juniper. But, you know, they all come out of the same set of traditions. So, you know, whether it's aperitifs like Campari and Aperol, whether it's Jägermeister, whether it's Malört, you know, God help you, you know, Spock, you know, gin, etc., Akavit, you know, this, you know, notion of infusing alcohol, you know, they're all part of the same family. They just get branded differently depending on where you are. And, you know, gin came out of a uniquely English tradition. Gin is a bit different because it's typically redistilled after it's infused. And most Amari are not, although some are. And again, you know, this Amari, you know, kind of category is very nebulous. And, you know, typically I think the most useful distinction is just in practice.

So Amaro typically in the Italian parlance would just be consumed at the end of a meal. Whereas, you know, bitters like Campari or Aperol are consumed at the beginning. So that's, you know, I find that, you know, the most, you know, useful distinction for the sake of these drinks. What else you got, Sam? How is sugar added? There's so much bitterness and it's kind of like balanced with a little bit of orange. Yeah. So I, it's fascinating. Like, you know, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, in researching this historically, I read that sugar, you know, these, these products became sweeter when they hit the market as popular kind of drinks to consume at the end of the meal.

I would imagine that the sugar would be added at the end of the production process. Obviously Francesca is not going to cop to that. You know I don't know why you would add it early. I don't, I think, you know, you ultimately, you would be diluting your spirit. Yeah. And, you know, the lower proof the spirit, the less you're extracting, although different flavors are more alcohol soluble and more water soluble. So, you know, there are some people that will do two tinctures. They'll do a set of tinctures at a very high ABV, you know, with something that's close to a hundred percent alcohol, and then they'll do something at a much lower ABV to, you know, kind of suss out, you know, these different dimensions of flavor. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. So, um, you know, so again, Jen typically distills higher proof than most Amari, but you know, emerges out of the same tradition as, as these drinks. Yeah. That's interesting too, because in fermentation, if you add sugar, then you can increase the potential alcohol at the end for the final product. But with distilling, it's quite the opposite. Um, could you go over, um, some of your, um, the specific pairings, um, that are in the snack pack to each Amari? Yeah. So for me, for the sake of the snack pack, honestly, it's just a lot of cheese. Yeah. Um, I, uh, had fun, uh, playing around with this, uh, earlier and, um, you know, uh, tasting through, um, you know, the various cheeses with the, uh, different Amari.

Um, I always find that I like the harder, saltier with the more citrusy, lighter, um, you know, much like I generally enjoy the harder, saltier cheeses with kind of lighter wines. Um, and, and the softer cheese, the hummingbird, um, I enjoyed with, uh, the darker, more bitter Amari. Um, uh, my reflection, though, was that, you know, uh, you have, uh, in Amaro a very loud voice, um, you know, for the sake of, uh, pairing. And you need a similar loud voice to work with it. Um, and, you know, uh, these pairings function less as yin to the yang sometimes than they do as an alec reset in a cool way. So, you know, something as unctuous as cheese sometimes can linger on the palate, you know, either in a pleasant or unpleasant way.

And, and Amaro has. It has this great way of resetting the palate. Um, and, and I really enjoyed that. And, and, and the cheese does the same for the Amaro. You know, um, you know, some of these, uh, Amari, you know, Fernet, it, it docked linger. Um, and, you know, if you want to move on and try something else, cheese has a great way of, you know, shortening that fuse and, and allowing you to move on to something else. And I, I think that's, you know, super cool. And then I can't overstate, um, you know, my love affair with citrus jam. So as much as this is a cheese pairing, you know, John and I kind of, um, you know, kind of envisioned it as a citrus jam pairing and, uh, all of these, um, you know, Francesca spoke to the, uh, all sorts of citrus that went into hers.

All of these, uh, Amari contains citrus and it is the glue that kind of holds them together. And, um, you know, to try them with citrus in context, I think is, is really, uh, super fun. Um, so I'm going to move on, cover the last four and toast, but, um, and then, you know, cover all sorts of more questions. Um, and, you know, I'm happy to sit here and sip on Amaro, uh, as long as you like, um, Chinar, um, is, uh, artichoke based and, uh, what's kind of cool is you end up with these like odd botanical ingredients that you wouldn't commonly think of, um, in the context of alcohol. So artichokes, you know, I don't know about you, but like, uh, they're, they're pleasantly bitter and vegetable, but I wouldn't think about infusing artichoke into my favorite dram, but, uh, the Italians went about it.

Um, you know, cause artichokes are just thistles, they're giant thistles. Um, you know, if you give them long enough, uh, they will flower and it looks really good. Um, but, uh, Chinar is the most famous, uh, artichoke derived, um, uh, Amaro, certainly not the only, only one. The, uh, brand name comes from, uh, the scientific name for, uh, the artichoke Chinar, uh, Skolim, uh, Skolimus. Um, uh, it's a great mixer Chinar. It's actually very low, um, ABV, um, uh, Amaro. Um, and, uh, it goes into one of my favorite cocktails, which is a Sinners and Saints. Um, and it occurs to me that I'm going to owe you guys some cocktail recipes, um, uh, and I will send those around in the recap.

Um, the paper plane, uh, is, is definitely worth mentioning, but the Sinners and Saints is an essentially kind of like a Negroni-Scotch variation. If you want to sound like a real douche in cocktail culture, refer to a cocktail as a variation on a known cocktail. That's what people do. Um, so, um, uh, the Sinners and Saints is an amazing cocktail developed by a New York OG bartender. Um, it's, uh. Chinar, um, uh, and, uh, Campari sparkling wine, and it is stupidly good. Um, uh, but Chinar works beautifully as a mixer because, um, in spite of being, you know, bitter, it's a bitter at a lower ABV. Um, so it clocks at, like, it's almost vermouth level. It's like 16 and a half, um, which is very low, um, by Amaro standards.

Um, I have a new love affair, uh, with this product. Um, uh, Capoletti is the only distillery that's represented twice, uh, in our flights. And there's a reason for that. Because everything they do is fucking awesome. Um, they're in, um, uh, Trentino, Alto Adige. Um, uh, Chinar comes from Lombardy. Um, uh, Alto Adige is kind of a German-speaking, uh, corner of, uh, Northern Italy. Um, and, uh, this is a Rubarbo. Um, the Rhubarb here is not the Rhubarb, um, that we throw in our pies. It's Chinese Rhubarb, um, uh, which, which looks, um, a little different. And, uh, typically you're using the, the root, um, here. Um, as opposed to the flowers. Uh, it's actually a beautiful plant, it should be said.

Um, are you, are the Rhubarb we, we commonly use is actually a hybrid of Chinese Rhubarb and some other plant that, uh, I'm not remembering. Um, uh, Sfumato, um, is lovably smoky. Um, and, uh, uh, Sfuma means smoke, um, in Italian. Um, it is, it's stunning. Um, it's very much an artisanal product. Um, uh, it is equally good in cocktails. Um, it works really beautifully. Um, in a Negroni, uh, as a replacement for Vermouth because it is like Chinar in that it's at 20% ABV. Um, so, um, you learn nothing else. You should learn that, you know, these, um, mixers that are at kind of lower ABV, um, they play better with friends sometimes than the ones that are at higher, uh, ABV.

Uh, but Sfumato is just bonkers delicious, um, on its own, uh, I find, um, as well. Um, and, uh, so again, uh, you're dealing. You're dealing with, uh, Trentino, uh, Alto Adige, um, uh, which is just outside this one, the distillery here is just outside of Trento, so we're not in German-speaking Northern Italy, but, uh, we are, uh, further north, closer to the Alps even, uh, than Friuli. Um, and then, uh, the last two, um, uh, two personal favorites. This is the Dear God Why Bitter Beer Face portion of the program. Amaro Sibila, um, and Elisir Novosalis, the original monster, uh, Dear God. Dear God Why Amaro. Uh, I'm gonna pull up the map here again. Um, so Sibila is from the Adriatic Coast, um, from La Marque.

Um, it's the same distillery that makes Albarista. Um, it is made with smoked botanicals, um, so Bitter Orange, Chinchona, Cinnamon Clove, Genshin, uh, both Flowers and Roots, which is super cool. Uh, Rhubarb Root, um, and Sweet Orange, and then they add honey, um, as a sweetener, which is unique for the sake of Sibila. Uh, I love that Sibila. Is just hugely in your face like, 'Fuck you, I'm bitter,' but strangely elegant and comes around and is multifaceted. So for me, it's a rare amaro that like leads with bitterness and then becomes something else as opposed to leading with something else and then devolving into bitterness. Um, and then there is El Sireno Salas uh, which is amazing, um, uh, and uh comes from uh the same distillery uh that makes the sfumato uh, the uh ingredients here include aloe, burdock uh root, chinchona, dandelion greens uh, which are hugely bitter.

Chinchona is hugely bitter, um, it's based on Marsala wine, Marsala being from Sicily, and then the secret ingredient here is another tree sap, not myrrh but a mystery Sicilian tree sap um, that gives you this um, really um unique um, and unapologetic bitterness that is almost unlike anything in uh the amaro world. So it's like sappy and and downright confrontational in a really cool way. Um, I encourage those of you who are still drinking this at home to chime in please uh with your personal El Sireno Salas stories, especially if you've Never had it uh before, uh Zoe dude anyone uh that is uh chiming in uh on uh the the more bitter uh you know uh unapologetic uh bad as I want to be uh like for the time being and do you want to add your own thoughts uh for the sake of uh these offerings uh there's just one thing here... dear god, the elixir possible to drink, yes um totally agree. They're they're harder um I think it's one of those things where playing around with them with either um different cocktails or um different foods is just necessary, it should be said. El sire and Sabila are terrible mixers um you know, they just... you know, you could add you know a few drops And the cocktail would just taste like El Sire and Sabila, you know. Cocktail should be greater than the sum of its parts, you know. When you add one of these to a cocktail, you know they become the only uh part, so um, they're kind of like they don't play well with friends but um I find them hugely compelling, uh, nonetheless um and there is like the Ls here in particular it's like sappy, I mean you can smell the tree um uh it is yeah it is green it is like yeah it is just offensive um but it's one of those for me it's kind of like looking at the sun it's like uh you know initially I wonder what I've gotten myself into and then I strangely like Um, it's a sadistic drinking pleasure. Um, sorry I'm still recovering a little bit. Like, it should be said that the Ls here ballas like live in a freezer. I don't yeah yeah you can you can sort of chill, I don't know if they uh I don't know if that's like a certain suggestion as such but like it does it does do well in in a freezer. Um, yeah and could you speak a little bit more about how the um alcohol um differs in so many different amari?

You know we have like Chinar, we have Chinarr 70, we have some that are clocking in at like like this um Aro is like Vermouth-like but we have some that are above 40. Yeah, I think it's just wherever. Again, it speaks to this um, you know diversity um, within the category um, it also speaks to you know the fact that you have local traditions and people developing you know these more kind of homespun recipes and um, they just land wherever it feels right to them, you know. It's a hugely unregulated category um, and you know so, you know some people don't have a lot of experience with alcohol but some people find you know 20% alcohol more pleasant, other people you know enjoy uh something closer to 30%, and you know there's nothing uh wrong with that, you know.

It will say you know the higher the alcohol um, typically um, you know the Um, more, you know, profoundly expressive, you know, the um accompanying flavors will be so bitter, will be more bitter sweet, will be more sweet, um, as, as the alcohol gets higher, um, bitter in particular, um, tends to turn out, um, as the, the alcohol rises, um, on all of these, but yeah, typically you're not at 40, um, I can't think of any of these that land quite at 40, typically you're somewhere in the, you know, 20 to 30 percent uh range with these and and, you know, just for the sake of comparison, uh, most vermouths land somewhere between like 18 and 22 percent.

Heard that um, could you speak a little bit more about how the amaro um can Be indicative of the region or if um each region likes to cling on to local ingredients, I think you know Nonino is a great example of how um that's not necessarily the case since you know the citrus is coming from Campania and Sicily. But could you speak a little bit more about how like there's a regional identity I guess yeah I thought it was kind of cool to hear Francesca speak to her proximity to Venice so um you know Venice is the center of the Renaissance era spice trade um and Italy is very much at the crossroads of Europe um and you know so you have local ingredients but then you have um you know a market basket.

Of ingredients that come from throughout um the old world and throughout you know the new world and um, you know, uh, all sorts of things that you know came from you know these exotic remote outposts that you know, uh, the Italians vanished um, the French you know gained access to um, you know, beginning in you know the uh 16th century um, so you'll see some local ingredients and you'll see some, you know, borrowed ingredients for all of these, you know, and and it gets murky, um, I find you know the there is a distinguishable style for the sake of the more alpine products you know that piney minty herbal quality you know, is Uh, for products like Vernet and Boraglio, something that I associate with the North, um, and then for something like the You know, the dumb capo for something like the Lucano that has more of this kind of, like, citrusy cinnamon inflection for something like Chia Chiara is from Lazio, you know it's just Rome but you know I'm still, you know feels fairly southern, you know you have these more citrus-inflected um drinks um and then everything else just feels kind of like a mash-up um uh but um you know I-I think there, there is a bit of both happening there's a bit of a borrowing from the local landscape and a bit of you know just leveraging. you know what's available and over time you know people create a flavor profile that is associated with the region you know that you know might result from um borrowed products or might result from native products but you know it's identifiably um you know associated with a particular corner of italy uh nonetheless and then you think about something like a pizza you know pasta so you know um tomato you know a huge part obviously of that uh equation um you know tomatoes are a new world uh uh you know flora um uh the mozzarella on neapolitan pizza come from water buffaloes what the fuck um you know water buffaloes are from You know, they're Asiatic. You know how the hell did they get to Naples? Um, you know, so you have always this, you know, um, but you know olive oil couldn't be, you know, more intrinsically southern Italian, but you know the Italians adopted their love of it from the Greeks, and Naples is this hugely, you know, Greek-inflected, you know, Italian place, so you know there is always this borrowing in in the food world, um, all food is fusion, you know, and Amaro uh embodies that, you know, almost, um, you know, kind of more poetically than any other drink that I can think of, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna close it very quickly before uh we we finish with questions with uh this notion of of lingering um i'm gonna close that very quickly um obviously this is actually uh one of the latest toasts i've gotten to and thank you uh everyone uh for for staying for staying on uh this long uh but i i love this idea of enforced lingering um you know and this kind of uh slowing down of life um and it's something that amari invites and something that you know the italians uh embraced and something that we do uh every week um through this virtual platform and um you know something that you know is enforced um you know in the that i hope we will consciously adopt um you know once uh life speeds Up again, um, and I want to share, uh, we're going to deliver our normal toast, but I want to share, uh, as well one of my favorite, um, Amaro adverts, um, of all time. So, it should be said that Chinar is one of the greatest, uh, advertising slogans, uh, of all time and, uh, Chinar, Ernesto Calendri, Ernesto Calendri, uh, this great, uh, Italian leading man of the era, uh, starred in these adverts that made Chinar popular throughout Italy and the slogan was, um, 'Against the vicissitudes of modern life' or 'Against the pains of modern life', but it just sounds better in Italian. So, we're going to toast as we do, uh, alone together, but also, um, uh, as, uh, Ernesto. would alone together but contra il logorio della vita moderna brindisi uh what else you got down um is there a botanical that's responsible for that coca-cola root beer flavor i think it would be rhubarb to some extent that's a really good question i think it would be rhubarb i think it would be cinnamon um uh there is uh so what is the cola botanical there is um uh what is like inca cola um have it there is like a uh distinct botanical that's responsible for the cola flavor um that you know i'm not readily um uh thinking of um i think cinchona um could you know contribute to that um you know cocoa beans um you know could contribute To that, but I don't think they're you know typically um in the mix when it comes to um you know amari um the caramel uh that is added um so most amari are uh kind of finished um with you know some kind of you know caramel uh flavor um and you know that certainly uh could um you know contribute uh to the flavor um so you know I i don't know that there's um there is a distinct coco botanical I mean uh it's not cocaine I think coca-cola originally had uh cocaine in it, it's certainly not cocaine uh uh but uh I don't know, I don't know what's in the mix uh long long story short uh but I should um and but it should be said that you know even coca-cola Itself, um, you know, all of you know derives from the same, you know, quack medicinal uh tradition, um, as you know these other um ingredients but, you know, cola nuts, um, were, were were the name the namesake of coca-cola, uh, k-o-l-a I can't I I can't think of an amaro that has cola nuts in it as such.

So I think it's more of like the, the caramel, um, that you get from the, um, you know, the, the sugar, um, than, than anything else. And then all the bacon spices that go into the mix. Totally. Um, what is your favorite, um, Amaro shot of choice coming from the bartender world? Is it Braulio or do you have a different favorite? Um, I don't like to drink Baileys as a shot. Ah, um, actually, uh, it just feels like too good for that. I want to linger over Baileys. Um, as a shot, um, we were doing, um, we did this thing that was like, uh, oh, we did, uh, the shot called Angostura Traces that I really liked actually. So this was, this was actually a, uh, most people, you know, claim things as inventions and they're not.

This was actually a, uh, a tail goat invention. It's, uh, um, uh, equal parts, uh, buffalo trace bourbon. Which is just a great entry-level bourbon and Angostura Amaro. So that, um, the people that make Angostura bitters, um, uh, they, uh, kind of made, created this Amaro, um, that I didn't include in our lesson, even though I love it because, um, it's not Italian. Um, but equal parts, um, buffalo trace and Angostura Amaro, um, creates a drink that we called the Ango Trace. Um, uh, that is, uh, Dan DiGenova, um, uh, coin, uh, but, uh, that is delicious. Um, uh, so there are all sorts of like weird Amaro mashups like that, like, uh, you know, like two part, you know, little shots that, that are, that are super fun.

There are a bunch of others that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, but, um, I guess that would be my, my favorite right off the bat. I remember something called Chartango, which was like green chartreuse. Yeah, I enjoy chartreuse, but I'm not like a chartreuse on tap kind of guy. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. Um, being said for those who don't know, it's like the bartender's handshake to take a shot of Fernet with someone. Um, but nonetheless, being a cocktail or wine professional, then you can't taste anything other than menthol for a very long time. So it's not that great if you're actually- Thank you to that. Um, and I, I didn't even get into the physiology of taste for this lesson.

You know, one of my favorite things about bitters is that, um, you know, we are genetically hardwired. Um, to be, um, this is where everyone tunes out for the sake of this lesson. When I, when I started talking about the physiology of taste, um, our numbers plummet. Um, but, um, uh, it should be said we are, you know, highly attuned to bitter flavors. So, uh, this is kind of cool. This is, um, those are our, our micromoles per liter. So it's the, uh, SI measurement of constant relative concentration of a drink. And basically what this is showing is that, um, for comparably, it's a, it's a threshold. Um, calculator, and this is our human threshold to detect these various flavors. So what it says is that you need a shit ton of units to detect something as sweet.

Um, and, and sucrose and glucose, um, you know, they're, um, uh, variously, uh, perceptible as, as, as sweet, uh, fructose, which mysteriously is not on here. I don't know why, but it's actually even, even more perceptibly sweet, not quite as sweet as saccharin. But the idea here is that, you know, it takes a lot of units of sugar for us to register as something as sweet. Um, it takes slightly fewer units, uh, to register something as salty, salty, slightly fewer still to register sour, but very few to register bitter. Um, and, you know, the evolutionary program there is that, um, you know, bitterness equals poison, uh, to us. So if you wanted to survive, it was an evolutionary advantage to be able, uh, to astutely taste bitter.

Um, you know, so, you know, what's cool about that for the, you know, sake of drinks that are potentially poisonous, well, you know, you're dealing with something that we are highly attuned to perceive and to taste and, you know, to, um, you know, detect and pick apart. So, um, you know, this bitter dimension of, of flavor is the one that we are, you know, most genetically adept at in dissecting. And, and if you really want to dig deep with these things at the end of the meal, you know, that's, that's what I enjoy about them. You know, they're self-contained cocktails and they're hugely dynamic and interesting, uh, because we are so sensitive, absolutely. Anything else? I think we have a lot of different questions.

Um, I know you have a few plugs and a few things that you want to tell everyone. Oh yeah. For the, yeah, for the 50-plus folks out there. So, um, uh, so we have a cocktail class on Thursday. Um, we are bleeding every last marginal dollar out of the holiday season. And, uh, we thank all of you, uh, for, uh, contributing, uh, to that. Uh, we love you and we're hugely grateful. Uh, for your ongoing support. Um, but cocktail class on Thursday to benefit Miriam's Kitchen, uh, building out three drinks, uh, which are available through the same store you purchased your flights, uh, with, uh, Miriam's does amazing work. Uh, we have worked with them since we opened a Tail of Goat.

Um, and, uh, it wouldn't feel right, um, to let the holiday season pass without raising some money for them. Um, we have, uh, greatest hits, uh, coming up next week. If you haven't had a chance to, uh, add your voice. Uh, and, you know, uh, tell me what wines you want to bring back. Um, there's a survey on previous mailers, um, that will circulate again tomorrow, um, that you can add your voice to. Uh, lastly, um, if you want to give the gift of wine school, um, uh, I'll be, uh, throwing out, uh, the last lesson of the year, uh, early, uh, that will be featuring, uh, Philippa Pato, um, who is, uh, I had the Zoe and I's girl crush, um, lovely woman, uh, with her, uh, Flemish husband, William, um, makes, um, amazing wine, uh, in about 80 region of central Portugal.

Um, you know, arguably one of the most kind of, um, high profile winemakers that we've had, um, on our chat and certainly, um, one of the most lovely, um, and hospitable. Um, and, uh, that will be the 27th. That'll be the last lesson of the year, um, before we go on a January, uh, holiday. Uh, so, you know, if you're looking, uh, for a last-minute gift idea and you want to buy a flight of wines for someone, uh, to enjoy with that class, we're going to throw that last lesson out early for you, um, so that, um, you can do so. So, um, you know, we're spreading the holiday cheer, uh, the best we can. And, uh, I thank you all, uh, for spreading it along with us and being, um, you know, the best, uh, guests, you know, participants, students, uh, that a virtual wine school could ever ask for. Uh, we love you. Thank you, Zoe. Thank you, Joe. Cheers. Ciao.