The Tasting Note
Mahogany in the glass, with a warm brown core.
Unmistakably Sicilian: bitter orange peel and licorice up front, then rhubarb, cinnamon, vanilla and a dark caramel-spice undertow drawn from a 1901 recipe of 26 herbs, roots, fruits and flowers grown on Etna's slopes.
Dense and bittersweet, citrus and cocoa layered over bark, gentian and a stony, volcanic edge.
Sweetness recedes early, leaving rhubarb and licorice to carry the last of it.
Made without artificial color, and just as happy poured neat at the end of a meal, over ice on a hot afternoon, or stirred into rye.
Drink now.
— Robert Cross
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Pour It Into
The Amaro Spritz
Lighter, more herbal, and far more sophisticated than its neon cousin.
Black Manhattan
Swap sweet vermouth for Averna and the Manhattan turns dark, silky, and faintly medicinal.
Amaro Highball
Three ingredients, one tall glass, the cleanest way to learn what an amaro really tastes like.
Amaro Sour
Egg-white silk over dark bitter herbs.
Sicilian Negroni
Averna in Campari's chair — softer, darker, more caramel.
Where to Buy
Where to buy Amaro dell'Etna
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The Bitter Brief
One short Friday dispatch: a bottle worth buying, a cocktail worth mixing, and a little Italian history.