Liquor Cabinet

— No. 78 —

Aperol & Campari

Cam­pari and Aper­ol are an acquired taste. I’m sure you know a few peo­ple who won’t touch the stuff and some that swear by it. I fall into the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. I appre­ci­ate their sophis­ti­cat­ed depth and find the bit­ter com­po­nent they bring to cock­tails absolute­ly essen­tial. If it was­n’t for Cam­pari we would­n’t have the time-test­ed Negroni or Amer­i­cano. Both Aper­ol and Cam­pari are Ital­ian aper­i­tivos pro­duced by the Cam­pari Group. Cam­pari was cre­at­ed in 1860 by Gas­pare Cam­pari. Aper­ol was …

— No. 75 —

St. Germain

Spring is final­ly upon us. So lets kick it off with a bot­tle St. Ger­main Elder­flower Liqueur. If you go to the St. Ger­main web­site they’ll tell you the love­ly sto­ry behind their art­ful­ly com­plex liqueur. It all begins at the foothills of the Alps, dur­ing but a few fleet­ing days of spring. Locals will hand­pick wild elder­flower blos­soms and bike sacks of these blos­soms down the hill­side to mar­ket.  These sacks will be the entire­ty of what will become St. Ger­main Elder­flower Liqueur.

— No. 74 —

Amaro

Seri­ous­ly, who knows more about overindul­gence in food than Ital­ians? Neces­si­ty is the moth­er of inven­tion. That’s how we have amaro or if you have a cou­ple then it’s amari (plur­al). Ital­ians gave us this bit­ter­sweet, herbal liqueur. It actu­al­ly means “bit­ter” in Ital­ian.  It’s usu­al­ly con­sumed as an after-din­ner diges­tif in Europe. Amari are typ­i­cal­ly chock full of ingre­di­ents.

— No. 73 —

Root & Snap

You may have heard of our neigh­bors to the north, Art in the Age of Mechan­i­cal Repro­duc­tion. This bou­tique is a must stop dur­ing my many Philly trips. That and the Ital­ian Mar­ket of course. Art in the Age of Mechan­i­cal Repro­duc­tion’s care­ful­ly curat­ed shop fea­tures small label goods from the likes of Bil­lykirk, Wren, Shabd and Prop­er­ty Of, as well as posters from local artists’ like Alex Lukas. The shop has a lot to offer, but I’ll be focus­ing on their hand craft­ed liqueurs. Well, actu­al­ly you can’t by them in their store. You’ll have to go to the liquor store down the block to get your bot­tles of Root and Snap

— No. 66 —

Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

Since 1821, peo­ple have iden­ti­fied Luxar­do Maraschi­no Liqueur by its straw-plait­ed bot­tles. Orig­i­nal­ly it was used to avoid break­age dur­ing sea trav­el. Now it is a sta­ple of the brand, visu­al­ly pulling it for­ward on liquor shelves across the globe. Still owned and oper­at­ed by the sixth gen­er­a­tion of the Luxar­do fam­i­ly, it is one of the old­est Euro­pean liqueurs (learn more about the his­to­ry of Luxar­do). Luxar­do Maraschi­no is a true clas­sic and is one of the most impor­tant …

— No. 64 —

Faretti Biscotti Famosi

Far­ret­ti Bis­cot­ti Famosi liqueur is made in the Trenti­no region of North­ern Italy where they still bake their bis­cot­ti cook­ies in rus­tic brick ovens. Sounds like a hid­den part of heav­en I’ve yet to find. Just like the tra­di­tion­al twice baked cook­ie, this liqueur’s recipe is based off of nuts, anise, cit­rus and caramel. The base is of vod­ka and it is sweet­ened with beet sug­ar. I’m not sure how this liqueur is craft­ed because there isn’t much on the …

— No. 62 —

Lillet Blanc

The orig­i­nal Lil­let Blanc recipe dates back to 1872 and was called Kina Lil­let made by Paul and Ray­mond Lil­let.  In 1986 it was refor­mu­lat­ed. The recipe cut back on the quinine/bitterness and added more fresh fruit notes. Kina in the orig­i­nal name comes from the Peru­vian tree called “kina kina”. They use the bark of this tree to make qui­nine, also called Chin­chona. Tast­ing notes: Sniff and you’ll notice the select blend of Bor­deaux grapes aged in oak casks, …

— No. 60 —

Saffron Infused Gin

Qual­i­ty bou­tique gin is sweep­ing the states, so it makes sense that France’s famous micro-dis­tiller (Gabriel Boudi­er of Dijon) has giv­en us an arti­sanal Saf­fron Infused Gin. The gin is based on an old French colo­nial recipe, cen­tered around the spices of India, and hand­craft­ed in small batch­es that uti­lize an old pot still method.

— No. 47 —

Applejack

Apple­jack was the first native­ly dis­tilled spir­it in the Unit­ed States, or what was the colonies at the time. Believe it or not, in New Jer­sey, apple­jack was used as cur­ren­cy to pay road con­struc­tion crews dur­ing the colo­nial peri­od. There used to be a num­ber of dis­til­leries in New Jer­sey and  Penn­syl­va­nia up until the 1930s, but now there’s only one, Laird & Com­pa­ny. William Laird made his first batch of apple­jack in 1698 and the recipe was shared …