The Bitter Zone
The pandemic was rough, but it provided opportunity for a lot of us to peck away at side projects and hobbies we might not have otherwise. I made my own amaro.
Amaro (the Italian word for bitters) is a category of liquors made from extracting the flavors from bitter roots like gentian or rhubarb, herbs, citrus peals. In antiquity these began as medicines, and over time grew into aperitifs and essential cocktail ingredients. There is a dizzying array available on the market and are made all over the world. Popular commercial amari include Nonino, Miletti, Averna, Ramazzotti (a personal fave), Cynar (another fave, made from artichokes!), Fernet-Branca, and Compari (essential ingredient in your classic negroni).
For a homemade concotion, you steep the ingredients in a high-proof alcohol for a few weeks then dilute and sweeten the tincture by adding water and a sweetener. The variety and variations are endless. I tried some with combinations of bitter roots, coffee beans, citrus, pine needles, tree bark, rocks and seeds. Sweeteners can be different types of sugar, honey syrup, or even a vermouth. Some were better than others, but the end results were surprisingly drinkable.
After bottling my amari, I designed my labels. I had no client but myself. I picked a cool typeface, Glodok Display, and went to work. Somehow I landed on the word ZONE simply because it looked cool — rarely is a choice that simple in a professional project, but this was for fun. . I could spin some explanation about how each bottle matches some climate zone or something, but it’s literally just because it looks cool. The colors, however, were based on what’s inside the bottle, matching the flavor tones of each amaro. I listed the key flavoring elements on each label, and included the essential details like ABV and mL.
Lastly, each was numbered and given a title drawn from scripture. My favorite of the bunch was inspired by high alpine forests and melting snow. It had a strong pine needle flavor with an earthy-mineral undertones. I named it “The Mountains Shall Bring Peace to the People” from Psalm 72:3. The others had similarly scripture-inspired titles.
I haven’t made any amari since the pandemic ended, which is a shame. It really doesn’t take that long and the results are amazing. Once you’ve felt the punch of flavor from steeping your own ingredients, the commercially available options taste so commercial. Not that they’re bad, but even the finest mass market amari have that factory-made quality. My wife and I have a fresh batch of tinctures going right now now — each root steeped separately. In the weeks ahead, we’ll experiment and combine the flavors and see what we can come up with. And, perhaps, it’ll be time to design some new labels.
