Amari
Amari is the plural of amaro (Italian for bitter), which is a category of bittersweet liqueurs primarily served as a digestif. Amari come in a wide variety of styles — but most are built around a certain herb, flower, bark, or nut. A typical amaro will be a blend of multiple botanicals, and most rely on very old, secret, family recipes. While many amari are opaque to the point of being nearly black in color, a whole spectrum of colors represents the amari universe — including clear amari. Amari can be consumed neat, on the rocks, or — increasingly — as part of a cocktail.
Top Amari/Amaro Posts:
Jagermeister Manifest
Cynar 70 Liqueur
Campari and Tempus Fugit Gran Classico
It’s a Jeppson’s Malört world, and we’re all just living in it. To be fair, that’s probably a stretch. Chicago’s bitter, wormwood-flavored liqueur isn’t exactly omnipresent. But it’s certainly on a hot streak, powered by an extremely vocal fan base and more than a few viral moments. The brand itself has capitalized on that increased…
Malört: You know it. You love it. Well I kinda love it, an opinion that has raised more than a few eyebrows about my sanity but for which I am unapologetic. That aside, here’s the scoop: Each year, Jeppson’s releases a special edition of its classic product called Barrel-Aged Malört (BAM), which, as the name…
Conceived at Harlem cocktail bar Sugar Monk and produced in Brooklyn, Atheras Spirits distills a collection of six spirits — two amari and four herbal liqueurs — all “bridging centuries-old traditions of botanical distillation with modern innovations in flavor extraction” — “each inspired by the intersection of art, history, music, and alchemy.” To call these liqueurs…
The Pathfinder is an up-and-coming non-alcoholic brand with a unique production method. The core product, Hemp and Root, is fermented from hemp and then distilled. The non-alcoholic spirit is then infused with a variety of botanicals, including wormwood, angelica root, ginger, sage, juniper, saffron, orange peel, and Douglas fir. Note that though it’s made from hemp,…
Violet Crown Spirits in Bastrop, Texas, produces a variety of obscure liqueurs and other spirits, including multiple absinthes and amari, the latter of which we turn our attention to today. We’re looking at three of them, each decidedly different. Violet Crown Spirits Midnight Marigold Bitter Cordial Review This herbaceous amaro was created in collaboration with…
Marie Brizard recently launched its response to Aperol, a bright orange liqueur (naturally flavored, artificially colored) designed specifically for spritzing. The product is crafted in Bordeaux, France and is infused with over 30 botanicals, “including wormwood, bay, basil, thyme, and citrus, and complemented by cherry and apple distillates.” Interestingly, it is specifically designed to be…
Cocktail & Sons makes some amazing artisanal syrups and mixers, and lately it’s put its first foot into the non-alcoholic spirits space with the launch of ZeroNero [red], a bitter amaro designed for solo sipping or for use in cocktails or with simple mixers like seltzer or soda. Listed botanicals include cloves, cassia bark, star…
While Fernet-Branca is the most well-known of its ilk, “fernet” is actually a style of densely bitter amaro, invariably made with a secret recipe, though most include myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and saffron in the mix — at least according to Wikipedia. Luxardo makes one, too, billing it as “Fernet Amaro,” claiming an infusion of…
The amaro craze continues with the launch of Brucato, a collection of three amari made in San Francisco with a heavy reliance on California-grown botanicals. The trio of expressions are markedly different, but all are widely versatile, able to be used as an aperitif, digestif, or — my pick — as a cocktail ingredient or…
“Amarno” is not a typo. Rather, it’s a clever portmanteau of amaro and, well, no, part of the growing N/A amaro space. Dr. Zero Zero is a “100% Italian” product, and it refreshingly includes all of the ingredients on the label, which include water, sugar, extracts of sage, quassia, wormwood, Chinese rhubarb, orange, and caramelized…