Combine Your Bottles of Bitter Booze!

Cynar, Fernet, and Campari in one weird, delicious package. Plus! A Jägermeister cocktail that’s actually good. (Yes, really.)

Over the last several editions of this newsletter, we’ve looked at Cynar and Fernet, plus the Mezcal Negroni, which in its most conventional form employs Campari. Each of these bittersweet bottles offers an unusual, incredibly distinctive flavor: There’s the syrupy-sweet citrus-bark of the Campari, the herbal-toffee mellowness of the Cynar, and the menthol-root balancing act of Fernet-Branca. These bottles are delicious. But they are also pretty weird.

You might not think these feisty flavors can coexist productively in the same glass, but as it turns out, there’s at least one relatively well-known drink that combines all three (along with a couple more ingredients) into a stirred-but-not-too-boozy sipper that’s an amaro fan’s dream cocktail. It sounds pretty odd, and, yeah, OK, it is. But it’s also a clever little marvel of a cocktail, one that comes together much better than you might expect. It’s a great demonstration of the benefits of blending multiple bottles of amaro in the same glass. 

Indeed, there’s a whole universe of drinks like this, and at least one bar that specializes in this sort of cocktail. As regular readers know by now, I love bitter things, and I think this style of multi-amaro, stirred-and-bitter cocktail is somewhat underrated amongst home bartenders. This style of drink can generate incredibly complex, consistently surprising flavor profiles with just a few ingredients. And this sort of cocktail also tends to be quite easy to make once you’ve acquired the ingredients. A shelf full of amaro is arguably the easiest way to ensure that you’ll always be able to mix up something surprising and delicious — especially if you mix your bitter bottles. 

So this week, we’ll look at a pair of bitter-bomb drinks that blend multiple amari in a single glass.