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According to tradition, the ingredients for bittersweet spirits are still kept secret. Is such secrecy appropriate in modern conditions?
You cannot know exactly what amari is unless you have tasted a high-end cocktail with at least one of these complex, bittersweet, herbal Italian liqueurs in the past five years. Bartenders all over the world add amari to cocktails. These spirits find their way into the diverse world of cocktails: from the simplest paper airplane cocktail to the complex Eeyore's requiem. Drinkers seem to have no problem consuming them, even if they do so in ways not approved by Italian tradition.
Despite the increased interest, the production of alcoholic beverages is still shrouded in mystery: where do they come from, and how exactly are they made? Even these simple questions are difficult to answer.
First, there is the diversity factor. The Italian amari liqueur is very popular all over the world, including the cocktails "Montenegro", "Averna", "Fernet-Branca" and "Nonino". The range of products is huge and includes hundreds of brands, made all over Italy, each with its own unique flavor. Each manufacturer (with a few exceptions) carefully keeps the recipe and ingredient list for their own amaro, just as the recipes for the production of Coca-Cola or 11 secret herbs and spices are kept carefully.
The Amaro Averna plant in Caltanisetta, in the heart of Sicily, is shrouded in obscurity. As the story goes, the original recipe for the exquisite sweet elixir "Amaro" was donated by the monks of the Abbey of Santo Spiteto Caltanisetta to Salvatore Averne in the middle of the nineteenth century, and only a few people now know the complete recipe. (The company only released three ingredients to the public: lemon, bitter orange, and pomegranate peel.) Production Manager Piero Fichi is a key figure in Caltanisetta. It is he who produces the final product. Fichy does his best to keep the recipe a secret: the bags of plants arrive unnamed, instead using only code words (eg "semini", "seeds" or simply "Q"). All this is done so that other employees cannot restore the complete list of ingredients and the recipe.
Fichy is pleased to report that the plants that enter the city of Avernu come not only from Sicily, but also from a wide network of suppliers from around the world. When the ingredients are in Caltanisetta, they are crushed, combined and soaked in a strong solution of neutral grain alcohol (made from wheat grown in Emilia).
In order to purify and remove all impurities, distillation is performed. After the infusion (aging) process, sugar and caramel are added to adjust the sweetness before bottling. Spirits are sold all over the world through the distribution network of the Italian alcohol giant Gruppo Campari. Fichy says frankly that the Italian liqueur "Averna" could be produced anywhere in the world. The only thing that connects its production with Caltanisetta is the centuries-old history and the fear that the liqueur will lose its Sicilian soul if it is produced elsewhere.
A similar story is repeated in the city of Bormio, which is located in the Valtellina region, near the border with Switzerland.Bormio is home to Braulio, a vibrant and invigorating amaro traditionally used as a tonic drink or for better digestion after a hearty meal. Like Averna, the Braulio patent was recently acquired by the Italian wine producer Gruppo Campari. Liqueur Braulio does not share Averna's monastic origins. In 1875, the pharmacist Francesco Peloni created a drink that he called Braulio. The cooking recipe is also kept in strict confidence.
The current production manager Edoardo Tarantola Peloni (the great-grandson of Francesco Peloni) keeps the production technology of Braulio a secret, as Piero Fichi does of Averna. Although Peloni is happy to share that the ingredients for the production of Braulio do not come only from the Valtellina regions. He has no right to report the rest. There is one small nuance: unlike most Amari, Braulio is aged in giant Slavic oak barrels. Some of them are kept from the first half of the twentieth century, and they are all located in basements deep under the streets of Bormio. Moving production to another location would be very costly.
This insistence on retaining the regional identity of their brands is proof that even global liquor giants such as Gruppo Campari understand the value of “terroir” (place of origin) in the production of their products.
Hurricane Irma, tropical storms that are increasing in intensity due to climate change, only exacerbate the situation. And this cannot but affect the growth of production volumes.
Both Fitchi and Peloni still do not say where the main ingredients for amari are sourced from. The recipe for the drink is still kept secret. Gruppo Campari pays great attention to the quality of its products, the health and safety of its employees, and invests heavily in protecting the environment.
Amaro production is also under strict secrecy. Even experts cannot answer the question about the harmful effects of amaro production on the environment. Brad Thomas Parsons, author of Amaro, politely declines to comment on the matter. He explains: “I cannot make security predictions due to climate change. The popularity of amaro is growing rapidly and problems with the cultivation and supply of herbs may arise. But we are dealing with classified recipes without coordination of actions and supervision from the government of the country. In this situation, it's all complicated. Of course, not to the same extent as the problem with the production of tequila or mezcal. " The long time it takes to grow agave fruits and the growing demand for spirits produced from agave are a major concern in the alcoholic beverage industry.
“The days of amaro growers using strictly defined types of herbs are by and large long gone. Basically, large companies are suppliers of ingredients from all over the world, ”continues Parsons.
In his comments, Parsons stressed that the key controversy regarding the current situation for Amari is that these spirits combine the taste and culture of the individual regions of Italy from which they come from, but popular brands are now so in demand that the need for plant materials is not can be satisfied by local manufacturers. Only an insignificant part of them should emphasize their connection with places facing history and tradition in the literal sense of the terroir, which a winemaker can use to talk about the connection of the final product with the place where raw materials are grown.
While the Amari trade is big business, the technology for the production of leading international brands is a little mechanized process. Moreover, the production requires plant raw materials and these raw materials must be grown somewhere. This puts their growers at an existential threat, just like growing any other crop. The question arises as to whether such secrecy surrounding their recipes at that time is justified, then the issue of stability becomes more and more urgent.
Thanks to the veil of secrecy, we will likely never know where the ingredients for the amaro come from. One thing for sure is that each bottle has taken a very long journey to reach its destination.
N.V. Naumchik
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