At this year's Tales of the Cocktail, I went to a terrific seminar called Til The Bitter End, lead by Audrey Fort of The Rooster Factory brand development agency.
I also gave a seminar about bitterness at Tales, with an emphasis on understanding the flavor of different bittering agents. This seminar, on the other hand, was about bitterness in general and measuring the impact of bitterness in different spirits in particular. Though I researched the heck out of my own seminar, I also learned a ton in this one.
One of the panelists was Mike Capoferri, Italian Portfolio Ambassador for the Campari Group. I'd not met him before and his part of the presentation was great. While Campari, the liqueur, doesn't disclose any of the ingredients in the bottle that make its distinctive flavor, Capoferri was able to share some of the very complicated production processes that go into it. And they're so complicated that it wouldn't matter if they disclosed every ingredient.
So first, some technical terminology that I'd not seen in this way before, defining various extraction techniques depending on whether it's done in alcohol or water:
One thing he mentioned in the seminar is that bitter compounds are not soluble in high-ABV alcohol. And I learned in the preparation for my own seminar that bitter flavors do not generally distill. That's why most bitter ingredients are macerated in the spirit rather than redistilled like gin. (In the case of Cointreau, I learned when I visited the distillery a few years ago, they distil their bitter oranges that have been macerated with pith in order to remove bitterness from the infusion.)
Essential oils (like from the peels of those oranges in Cointreau) on the other hand do distill well, and are soluble in high-ABV alcohol.
Within the Campari portfolio, Averna is a simple extraction of botanicals in high proof spirit, so the result is a not-super-bitter amaro.
Braulio, in contrast, is macerated at a lower proof, to enhance the bitter flavors.
Anyway, those maceration techniques are used in the production of Campari:
I'm glad to see Campari isn't just Herbs -> Infusion -> Filtration -> bottling. I like it when things are interesting.
Three important observations (of mine) from this:
"1 of 8 Colorants": As I revealed on this blog post about how Campari is made differently around the world, insect-based natural cochineal coloring seems to have been replaced by artificial coloring in most parts of the world, but not all. The post identified some of the ways that the red coloring is labelled – and now we know there are eight variations (or at least there were at the time this slide was made)!
"1 of 5 ABV's": Also on the blog post we knew there were different ABVs. I'm surprised there are only 5. But on the other hand, 5 ABVs times 8 colorants means they could make up to 40 variations of Campari.
"Fining": On that same blog post, we saw from the bottle in Jamaica that Campari "contains eggs." I am pretty darn sure that is from the fining process (also used in beer and wine) that brings the liquid to clarity. The only thing to note here is that they use the term "fining" rather than "filtration" which helps build our case. To repeat from that blog post, even though in most countries Campari is no longer colored with insects, it is still almost assuredly not vegan.
So, that was awesome. Thanks to Audrey Fort and Mike Capoferri for the info.
I was researching a few different topics and stumbled upon an interesting observation: Not only is Campari sold at a wide-ranging variation of alcohol percentage in different countries, the coloring used to make its signature red is different depending on the country.
As many people know, Campari was traditionally colored with cochineal, a scale insect native to South America that grows on the prickly pear cactus. (Cochineal is still used in many products today, as it is a natural coloring and doesn't need to be labelled as the unsightly 'artificial coloring'.)
In 2006 cochineal was discontinued – but as it turns out, not everywhere. In the United States and it seems most countries, Campari now uses artificial coloring. Depending on which country one is located in, that coloring must be declared in different ways, so what is merely "artificially colored" in the US is labelled as three specific coloring agents in one country, and none at all in others.
But in at least one country, cochineal is still used.
In the United States, Campari is sold at 24% ABV and the coloring is listed as "artificially colored."
In France, the ABV is 25% and the colorings are listed as E122, E102, and E133.
Next door in Spain, no special colors are labelled, but it's also sold at 25% ABV.
It appears it is the same in Argentina (with INS instead of E numbers), but the proof is 28.5%.
In Brazil it is the same, and labelled gluten-free.
In Toronto, it is sold at 25% and the color is merely misspelled (kidding!) as "colour."
In Australia, it is sold at 25% with no special color labelling.
In Malaysia it is the same – 25%, no color labelling.
In Japan, it appears to be sold at 25%. Anyone ready Japanese and can tell me if it says anything about coloring or eggs?
(One reader responds: "Red #102, Yellow #5, Blue #1. Don't see any mention of eggs.")
In Israel, it's sold at 25% ABV with E122, E102, and E133 listed as colorants.
In Iceland, it's sold at 21% ABV with no special color labelling.
Now here's where it gets really interesting.
I was wondering if the Swedish government website was merely out of date as it lists the coloring as E120 – that's cochineal(!), but a friend just picked up a bottle recently and cochineal is still in Campari in Sweden. Additionally, it is sold at 21% ABV.
Update: A twitterer sent me a pic of bottles from Mexico – they also have cochineal! See the E120:
And even more interesting is this bottle of Campari from Jamaica. Hold onto your butts:
"Blended and bottled in Jamaica… by J Wray & Nephew" [Campari now owns JW&N]
28.5% ABV
"Contains Egg"
CONTAINS EGG. Folks, that is some interesting news right there. Typically when eggs are used in wine, beer, and spirits (that aren't egg-based liqueurs), the eggs have been used in the fining process that helps filter the products to clarity. I think it's fair to assume this is how eggs are used in Campari.
My guess would be that because Jamaica has a Rastafarian community, many of which are vegans, products fined with eggs are required to be labelled.
What this means though, is that even though they took out the cochineal insect coloring (except in Sweden and Mexico apparently), Campari, at least in Jamaica, is still not vegan.
The question remains what it is in the rest of the world – I would bet that Campari is still not vegan.
Keep in mind that much cane sugar is whitened using bone charcoal, so any liqueur or sweetened alcohol has an okay chance of being non-vegan.
Thank you to my Facebook and Twitter friends from around the world who shared their bottle images. If you live in another country not mentioned here, please send me your bottle image to add to this discussion. Thanks!
The difference between almonds, bitter almonds, "bitter almonds," and stone fruit pits/seeds like apricot, peach, and cherry can be very confusing. This post will hopefully help sort that out.
Almond trees come in either sweet or bitter varieties. Sweet almonds are the ones you eat, and considered safe.
Bitter almonds contain cyanide precursors and are not commercially available in the United States. According to Wikipedia, "Bitter almonds may yield from 4–9 mg of hydrogen cyanide per almond and contain 42 times higher amounts of cyanide than the trace levels found in sweet almonds."
The FDA requires that bitter almond oils are “free from prussic acid (cyanide).”
But bitter almond liqueurs like Disaronno and Luxardo Amaretto contain bitter almonds. Well, yes and not really. These liqueurs contain the oil of "bitter almonds," which is how they refer to the seeds of stonefruit.
Disaronno only uses apricot pits in their formulation, while Luxardo uses all three of the stone fruits. The stone fruit seeds are crushed and distilled, leaving behind the dangerous parts. The bitter almond oil is collected and used to flavor the liqueurs.
I bought some almonds, peach seeds, and apricot seeds online. As you can see, the unsafe "bitter almonds" just look like smaller sweet almonds.
In short:
Almonds are sweet almonds.
Bitter almonds are a type of high-cyanide-containing almonds, but also:
"Bitter almonds" you see for sale/on ingredient lists are usually the seeds of stone fruit like apricots, cherries, and peaches.
According to the TTB: "Bitter Almond Oil produced from the pits of Bitter Almond, Peach, Apricot or Cherry must be free from Prussic Acid (FFPA) as determined by the AOAC Method 973.19." So no matter which type of bitter almond one chooses, it must be free of cyanide.
Another note: There is some confusion (or at least I had some) about whether those stone fruits that resemble almonds are the pits or the seeds of the fruit. Pits are the containers of the seeds, and the seeds are the things that look like tree almonds. So in the picture, you can see that the sweet almonds refers to the seeds, which are surrounded by the pits.
For practical (rather than botanical) purposes, these seeds can also be called kernels.
Last year I visited Limoncello di Capri located on the island of Capri south of Naples in Italy. The liqueur is assembled on the island from ingredients produced on the mainland, including the lemon peels. These come from the Sorrento area nearby.
The Sorrento region has a long history with citrus. During the Greek/Roman period there were lemon trees planted for their beauty in the area. In the 17th century Jesuits started cultivating lemons to use as disinfectant against cholera. The beginning of the 19th Century saw the use of the pergola system I'll talk about in a minute.
Limone di Sorrento IGP – Lemon Laws
The lemons here as well as the limoncello are IGP products – Protected Geographic Indication like AOC or DOC. The IGP are includes both Sorrento and Capri. Here are some of the IGP Limone di Sorrento laws I was able to pick up:
Lemons must be covered in winter (see below).
Only natural fertilizer can be used.
They must be grown within the region
There are further regulations for limoncello below
The name for the lemons of the region is Ovale de Sorrento. The fruits take about one year to grow, though the tree flowers 3-4 times annually and they harvest fruit several times as well. The soil is volcanic and helps produce less acidic lemons than in other areas, but these lemons require special care to thrive in this region at all. We visited a lemon grove called Il Giardino di Vigliano.
*Note that somehow I destroyed all my pictures from this trip, so these photos come from Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
The lemon trees/branches are grafted onto wild orange tree rootstock. Those roots are bigger and hardier and live longer (200 years) than typical lemon trees, so they extend the life of the lemon trees.
Some of the trees have wild orange roots and base of the trunk, followed by a grafted regular (not wild) orange trunk, and then lemon branches grafted onto that (like some sort of citrus turduckin). They can only graft during April and May, and have only a 60-70% success rate in grafting, so this is not easy to accomplish.
Photo: Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
In the winter, the region cools down and gets windy, so they use the pergola system to protect the trees. Chestnut wood pieces make an awning structure over the top of the trees, and in the winter nylon netting or pagliarelle is spread across the top.
Pagliarelle (which sounds like "pie-a-rella") is just an old covering made from small wood slats. Both these coverings keep the temperature more stable in the cold months. In the photo below, the little houses actually hold the wooden slats which can be spread out over the pergola.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Northern Lemons vs. Southern Lemons
I previously visited another limoncello facility south of this area along the Amalfi Coast, and was surprised to see how different the lemons are grown while not being very far apart. Read about my visit with Pallini Limoncello here.
Those lemons are of the variety sfusato. The trees grow on terraced cliffs and the branches are supported by a pergola. (In Sorrento the pergola just holds up the roof.) Those lemons also grow faster and larger, have less essential oil in their peels, and are more acidic, according to my hosts.
Harvesting and Peeling Lemons for Limoncello di Capri
Limoncello di Capri purchases from about 30 different growers. They do not own the orchards but they employ 2 people whose job is to check on the quality of the lemons from the trees through the bottling process.
This is all tracked, so that the company could look at a bottle's serial number and tell you where the lemons came from used in it.
The lemons are hand-harvested and transported to the processing facility. Then they are soaked, then sprayed and brushed/polished.
Next they go into the peeling machine. Eighty Five percent of the lemon – all the fruit part – is discarded as they only want the peel.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
The peelers at this facility are adapted cantaloupe peelers that can peel lemons 4 at a time. Here it is at regular speed:
And in slow-motion:
The peeled lemons are put into plastic bags, vacuum sealed to remove air, and frozen in 6 pound bags. They are frozen because they will be used to make limoncello year-round, while the lemon harvesting is only for part of the year.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Limoncello Laws
There are IGP laws for IGP Limone di Sorrento limoncellos, which can be produced in Sorrento and on Capri.
It must be produced, peeled, and bottled within the IGP
No colorant is allowed and no chemicals can be used in the processing
They must have a minimum of 250 grams of lemon per liter. (Limoncello di Capri uses 330 g/l in their formula.)
That number is the quantity of whole lemons used. So, since Limoncello di Capri uses 15% of the lemon (the peel), that means there are 330 x .15 = 49.5 grams per liter of lemon peels used.
Life Gives You Too Many Lemons
With 85% of each lemon discarded, I asked about any recycling/reuse. They said that some lemons are in fact juiced. Some of the lemons are composted, some are disposed of as industrial waste, and the city uses some as a disinfectant in its water treatment program.
Assembling the Limoncello on the Island of Capri
Capri is an island a short ferry ride from the town of Sorrento. It is full of windy roads and tall cliffs, which means there are great views from nearly everywhere on the island.
If I understood correctly, not only is Limoncello di Capri the only commercial limoncello made on the island, it is the only production facility of any kind on the island.
It was also the first brand to use and trademark the name "limoncello" meaning "little lemon", but plenty of other people used the term. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that limoncello was a generic name in 2002, so they got a bit stiffed on that one.
The lemon peels are removed from their vacuum-sealed bags and added to 2000 liter tanks of 96% ABV grain alcohol. The lemon peels are infused for 5 days in the alcohol, and by the end the mixture is down to 87% ABV. They use lemon peels collected at different parts of the season to control for natural variation.
The lemon peels are then filtered out and sugar and water is added. The final sugar content is 240 grams per liter.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
They bottle the product at 32 percent alcohol, which they say is slightly higher than other brands because the product is all natural and more alcohol is needed as a preservative. (They also say that only 20% of limoncellos are made with only lemons- the rest have flavorings and colorings.)
The bottled limoncello is then shipped out. They bottle on the island in the mornings and ship out the limoncello in the afternoons. Because the island only has small roads, their van can only take one palette of limoncello at a time. The driver loads up 7 palettes per day.
In bad weather, they can't get supplies in or limoncello off the island, so production goes on hold.
They produce 800,000 bottles per year at this tiny facility.
A Model of Inefficiency
It doesn't take an efficiency expert to see that this is a crazy system: Bottles, alcohol, sugar , and lemon peels are shipped over from the mainland, mixed together, then sent back to the mainland. It would make a lot more sense to do this all on the mainland, but they're sticking with the brand's heritage and producing on the island.
The brand history dates back to the 1800s, when hotel owner Vincenza Canale would prepare the drink for hotel guests. There were traditions of making homemade lemon liqueur but according to the brand nobody thought to commercialize it until much later. (As far as I can tell, commercial limoncello only began in the 1980s.)
The brand Limoncello di Capri was not launched until 1988 by the descendants of Vincenza.
We visited the little hotel where the brand was founded, Casa Mariantonia, which was apparently only the second hotel built on the island. There is still a lemon grove in the yard, where we had drinks.
I think of bottles of spirits with strong regional connections as postcards of flavor. Limoncello di Capri will always remind me of the sunny island where it's made.
In the fall of 2014 I had a really terrific visit to the distilleries for Molinari Sambuca and Limoncello di Capri, both located south of Rome in Italy.
History Lesson
Molinari Sambuca is an anise liqueur originally created in Civitavecchia, a port city north of Rome. Much like Schiedam in the Netherlands where the spices that came on ships ended up in local spirits (juniper for genever and other ingredients for liqueurs in that case), star anise reaching Civitavecchia wound up in in local spirits and gave birth to the category of sambuca.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Molinari was not the first brand of sambuca on the market- that honor belongs to Luigi Manzi and his Sambuca Manzi going back to 1851; also in Civitavecchia.
However it was Molinari Sambuca, created by Angelo Molinary in 1945, that became world famous (and is still the best-selling sambuca in the world). During the "La Dolce Vita" era in Italy the brand purchased TV ads and it became the second-best selling spirit in Italy after Aperol.
Today there are two Molinari distilleries. One is still in Civitavecchia (though they say the facility is now more for administration and a small production line) and the other is Colfelice, about a 1 hour drive south of Rome, where they make the majority of the product.
The company is still run by family members. Only one person per generation knows the exact recipe for Molinari, but after one of them was kidnapped and held for ransom many years ago they decided that they should also keep a copy in a vault.
Making Molinari
The primarily flavor of Molinari comes from star anise that is imported from southeast China. To prepare it, the fruits are harvested, the seeds are blanched to stabilize them, they are then partially crushed and essential oils are extracted through water distillation. I believe this all happens in China, though some refinement of the essential oils may occur locally. Most of the essential oil from star anise comes from the seeds.
*Note: I somehow lost most of my photos from the trip so I'm using those of Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
There are other secret ingredients in Molinari. (Wikipedia notes that licorice and elderflowers are often found in sambuca but I'm not sure what's in this one.)
The sugar used for Molinari is non-GMO sugar derived from sugar beets. They say it has a high solubility which makes it good for use in liquids.
The base alcohol is distilled from wheat (they purchase, rather than distill it). Often that wheat is grown in France but it is distilled in Italy.
To make Molinari they combine demineralized water at 60-75 degrees Celsius with sugar so that it dissolves. They wait for it to cool then add 96% ABV alcohol and essential oils.
The mixture rests for 5 days in large tanks. It is then filtered with a 3 micron cellulose filter at room temperature. (Chill-filtering sambuca would cause the louche effect and remove many of those essential oils they just added.)
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Molinari Caffe
Molinari Caffe has been made since 2003 but it was just reintroduced to the US market this winter.
It is made primarily with two kinds of coffee: Aribica (from the Domonican Republic/Java region) and Robusta from Africa. The coffee is roasted in Italy before making the liqueur here at the distillery. It is not just a coffee liqueur – the base Molinari Sambuca is there as well so it's a coffee-anise liqueur.
The color comes in part from burnt caramel. My hosts tell me that if you use burnt caramel for coloring you don't need to declare it on the label per EU rules, but other caramel coloring does need to be declared.
(a) Sambuca is a colourless aniseed-flavoured liqueur:
(i) containing distillates of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), star anise (Illicium verum L.) or other aromatic herbs,
(ii) with a minimum sugar content of 350 grams per litre expressed as invert sugar,
(iii) with a natural anethole content of not less than 1 gram and not more than 2 grams per litre.
(b) The minimum alcoholic strength by volume of sambuca shall be 38 %. L 39/42 EN Official Journal of the European Union 13.2.2008
(c) The rules on flavouring substances and preparations for liqueurs laid down under category 32 apply to sambuca.
(d) The sales denomination may be supplemented by the term ‘liqueur’.
Note that the regulations define sambuca as 'colourless' but there are red and green and black ones on the market at least in the UK. Not sure how that's allowed.
One Quick Recipe
Molinari has hired the talented Gegam Kazarian to develop cocktails with the brand. We tried several of them at a tasting at the cocktail bar Barnum Cafe in Rome. The Cucumis Collins was my favorite of the bunch.
Cucumis Collins By Gegam Kazarian
60 ml Molinari Extra 30 ml Lemon Juice 60 ml Sparkling Water 60 g Fresh Cucumber Cherry tomato Lemon Peel
Muddle the cucumber in a cocktail shaker then add liquid ingredients except sparkling water. Shake with ice and strain into collins glass. Add sparkling water and garnish with lemon peel, and cherry tomato, and a thin slice of cucumber.
Last fall I visited the growing, drying, and production facilities for Ancho Reyes chile liqueur near Puebla, Mexico. I learned a lot about chiles.
We flew into the city of Puebla, and the chiles are grown not far away in San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida.
Ancho chiles are the dried version of poblano peppers, much like chipotles are dried jalapenos.
Poblanos: The Reaping
We visited a field where the chiles for Ancho Reyes were being harvested. These fields are 2000 meters above sea level in a volcanic valley. Water comes down from nearby volcanoes and makes the fields very wet . We had to travel standing in the back of a big truck to get through all the mud on the roads. The water is good, because poblano chiles require lots of it.
In March and April the seeds are germinated and planted. They are delicate plants and require lots of care. The plants are supported by lines of string, so that they won't fall in the mud when the heavy peppers grow on them. It takes about 6 months before harvest.
Poblano chiles are harvested one time per year. The first ones harvested are sold as fresh green chiles.
Chiles that will become dried anchos are left on the vine longer than the ones harvested for fresh poblanos. Leaving them longer on the field concentrates flavors and sugars.
All There Is To Know about the Drying Game
Around a bend on a small street in the town of San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida, you come across a cement fence with cacti on the top in place of barbed wire. Behind it are guard dogs; a double-incentive not to hop over the top.
Inside is what looks like the foundation for a large building not yet started – a big patch of dirt, but it has been combed up to wide plateaus with narrow ditches dug through every ten feet or so. On top of those raised beds are zillions of drying poblano peppers in a limited rainbow of colors from red to brown, some still with their green stems sticking out.
Beneath the peppers are what looks like a hay mat (actually small encino oak), which allows air to flow around the peppers as they dry.
The chiles dry for between 15 and 30 days here, being flipped over every 3 days or so. The drying process both concentrates the flavor and sugar in the chiles, makes them shelf stable, and gives them more flavor complexity according to our hosts.
Not all chiles you'll find in stores are dried this way – many now come from China, where they are dried in ovens.
The Blend Of It All
The recipe for Ancho Reyes is "inspired by" a recipe from 1927.
The actual recipe is:
90% Ancho chile peppers
10% Guajilla and Pacilla peppers
A small amount of secret ingredients
Alcohol – 55% ABV cane syrup from Veracruz, Mexico
Sugar syrup, also from Mexico
Guajilla peppers are hot and spicy, while pacilla are more earthy. Dried chiles come into the production facility in big bags.
The chiles are cut up with scissors. Some but not all of the seeds are discarded to get the right amount of heat in the final product.
Then the pieces of chli are infused into 1000 liter tanks of alcohol. About four of those huge bags go into each 1000L tank. They are stirred once per week and infuse for around 6 months.
Each of the three chile varieties are infused separately, then the product is blended at the end along with sugar. When they blend, there is no set amount of sugar – they match it to the heat of the product each time.
All the color of Ancho Reyes comes from the chiles; none is added.
Back in April I visited the Fernet-Branca distillery outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some of you may remember me tweeting about it. Well, it's about time I gave it the formal write-up.
Fernet-Branca owns two distilleries: the main one in Milan, Italy, and this one in Buenos Aires. In past years there used to be many Branca distilleries in different countries (including the US), but as global shipping has become easier this model makes the most sense.
Production began in Argentina around 1905 or 1908 and has continued ever since. The current distillery was built in 2000 and it already at full capacity.
Surprisingly, the Fernet-Branca we drink in the US is made in Milan. The Fernet-Branca made in Buenos Aires is consumed mostly in Argentina but also South/Latin America.
I didn't directly ask if the Fernet-Branca made in Buenos Aires is made to the exact same recipe, but if you compare them side-by-side you can tell it is not. The stuff made for the local market is less sweet than the international version (makes sense given that they always drink it with Coke, never on its own), and some bitter elements seemed to be different in a way I can't describe. Also, the proof was different than the international version but I believe recently has changed to conform with the Italian one.
They do, however, willingly admit that they use only three different ingredients than in Italy: The base alcohol is a local 95% ABV sugar cane distillate, and the sugar cane is local as well. The water is also local, coming from an underground river in the area. Another local ingredient used is chamomile, but the same flower is exported from here to be used in the Italian production as well.
Unfortunately pictures were not allowed in the distillery, so below is the verbal tour. I should also note that this is not a distillery at all: the base alcohol is distilled elsewhere. This is the blending and aging facility, but to make it easy I'll just call it a distillery.
Herbs and Spices
The first room we passed had the smell of caramel, and in fact that's where they were making the carmel coloring for Fernet, which they appeared to be doing by heating and stirring sugar in big tubs.
Most of the work in making Fernet-Branca is doing tons of separate infusions and macerations to get the flavor from the herbs, barks, roots, and spices into the spirit. Thus, the rooms that we walked through were full of different types of stainless steel tanks of a wide variety of shapes and sizes.
Some were small simple tanks, some were huge vats, some had stirrers and filters on them; some were sideways roller tanks that slowly rotate. Our guide told us that some ingredients are infused into alcohol; others into water. Some infuse separately; other ingredients are combined.
The longest infusion of any ingredient in Fernet-Branca is for 90 days, but our guide couldn't say which ingredient that was. We saw piles of burlap bags of chamomile, zedoria, and other spices from India, Spain, Africa, and Iran stacked in different rooms. Other herbs are kept in a refrigerated room. They store 2 years' worth of ingredients just in case there are any supply chain problems down the road.
Aging Fernet
Beneath the factory is a huge basement that stores tanks for aging Fernet-Branca. There are six cellars, plus two additional climate-controlled warehouses. These are full of gigantic wooden vats (one of them holds 100,000 liters!) aging the liqueur. Two of the smallest vats at the distillery date back to around 1908 and were used at the Italian distillery before being sent to Argentina.
Each tank ages separately, but before bottling they pour the Fernet-Branca into one tank that is connected to a series of other tanks by tubes. They only draw the finished product out of the last tank, so this is a way to marry and blend a great quantity of the Branca for consistency.
Production
The factory is running at full capacity making 4 million cases every year, and presently and they are expanding to double that over the next few years.
They also make Branda Menta here, Punt E Mes, and they bottle Borghetti coffee liqueur.
Drinking Fernet-Branca, Argentinean-Style
Mix it with Coke. They never drink Fernet-Branca on its own; I'd hazard a guess to say that almost nobody has ever even tried it neat there.
It's funny that to us Fernet and Coke sounds repulsive (while to them drinking Fernet-Branca neat sounds like drinking radiator fluid), yet it's not actually that bad. They seem to treat it like an everyday cocktail like a Gin & Tonic, but I actually didn't mind it as a digestif after a meal.
In 2011 I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. I wrote about that here. After I returned I realized I had a few more questions.
Luckily, Cointreau's Master Distiller Bernadette Langlais was in San Francisco last night so I had a chance to clarify some questions about the centrifuge part of the process.
To recap, Cointreau is made by steeping orange peels in high-proof neutral beet sugar alcohol and distilling it. This 'raw alcoholate' is reduced with water, centrifuged, then reduced with more water, more neutral alcohol, and sugar before filtration and bottling.
The centrifuge step was curious to me, so I asked Langlais for some clarification. She told me that this step removes some essential oils from the alcoholate.
But then why not just use less oranges in the first place to have less essential oils?
It turns out that they use the centrifuge (which is a continuous centrifuge, by the way, not a batch process) to remove only certain essential oils. Surprisingly, they are not removing heavy ones that would collect at the outside of the centrifuge (a centrifuge separates by weight), but the lightest, zesty oils.
Langlais said this was so that there is a proper balance between the 'juicy' flavors and zesty ones in Cointreau. If they left everything in, the liqueur would be overwhelmingly zesty.
Local Sugars
I also brought up the topic of Cointreau in Brazil and Argentina, where it is made with sugar cane alcohol and cane sugar, instead of beet sugar. This is due to local tax regulations that would make Cointreau prohibitively expensive if they used their regular beet sugar. I learned that they make the same 'raw alcoholate' (high-proof orange-infused alcohol) at the distillery in France and ship that to the local countries. There, they add more (cane) alcohol and (cane) sugar before bottling.
Langlais said that it tastes the same as regular Cointreau. She also said that the sugar from cane or beets tastes exactly the same, and the more important part of the equation is the alcohol, even though it is 96% alcohol and supposedly neutral in flavor.
In the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, December 18th, I have a story on the category of fernet.
Leopold Brothers has a modern formulation of fernet that should be hitting story shelves this Wednesday afternoon, and Tempus Fugit Spirits has a vintage recreation of fernet coming in the new year.
(Photo by John Storey)
From the story:
While many people call for the bitter liqueur Fernet-Branca by the shorthand "Fernet," they should probably specify "Branca." Fernet is not a single product but a type of spirit, and its ranks are about to become more populated.
Angelico Fernet, from local importers Tempus Fugit Spirits of Novato, launches early next year, while Fernet Leopold, from Leopold Bros. of Denver, should be available this week. They join examples from Stock, Luxardo and R. Jelinek.
At the end of the story, there is a delicious cocktail from Darren Crawford of Bourbon & Branch and Tony Nik's and Scott Brody of Per Diem. It contains fernet, Carpano vermouth, Domaine de Canton, lime juice, and ginger beer.
I haven't created cocktails yet with the dehydrated liqueurs I've been making for the Solid Liquids project, mostly because I figure y'all are don't lack imagination and will find good uses for them.
But here's a drink I've been hankering to create since the beginning.
The Aviation cocktail was originally made with gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, and creme de violette liqueur, but at some point in one cocktail book copying from another, they left off that last ingredient.
For something like 60 years, the recipe was written incorrectly as the first three ingredients only, even through the beginning of the current classic cocktail revival. Then someone figured out they were missing the creme de violette that turned the drink sky blue and gave the cocktail its name.
I decided a fun drink would be to create the drink that is the missing link between the wrong and correct recipes, leaving the drinker the option to have it either way. The cocktail has dehydrated creme de violette sugar around the rim, and what's in the glass is the other three ingredients.
Missing Link Aviation By Camper English
2 oz. Gin .75 oz. Maraschino Liqueur .75 oz. Lemon Juice
Shake and strain all ingredients into a glass rimmed with Dehydrated Creme de Violette.
