Sara Newton, beverage director at Amaro’s Table, is an amaro whisperer. She knows you probably haven’t tried an amaro, so she has created amaro flights, paired with helpful note cards, to bring you on a buzzy journey through the world of this ancient amber digestif and darling of craft bartenders.
Amaro is the Italian word for “bitter.” But that barely explains the complex flavors created by mashing a mosaic of traditionally foraged ingredients in alcohol, sweetening it with sugar or honey, and aging it in casks or bottles. Unusual herbs like gentian, angelica, cardoon, cinchona, lemon verbena, juniper, anise, fennel, bay laurel, rue, and wormwood create curious flavors and aromas when combined with roots, flowers, bark and citrus.
In his influential book “Amaro,” Brad Thomas Parsons explains, “Generally speaking, amaro refers to the collective class of Italian-made aromatic, herbal, bittersweet liquors traditionally served as a digestif after a meal.” Unlike Italian wines, amari (the plural form of amaro) don’t have a DOC (controlled designation of origin) label, so bitter liqueurs from places outside of Italy can also be called an amaro.
At Amaro’s Table, flights consist of one-ounce pours of three different amari. Many craft cocktail bars have several varieties of this bitter; here, there are more than 30 imported and domestic amari colorfully decorating the neat oak shelves behind the cozy, bright white bar. Newton likes to have “a good representation of all the varieties.”
