Liquor Cabinet

Issue No. 83 —

Bonal Gentiane Quina

Than­ks to the importers Haus Alpenz we have the abil­i­ty to pur­chase two of my favorite aper­i­tif wines, Coc­chi Amer­i­cano and Bonal Gen­tiane Quina in the States. But today we focus on Bonal Gen­tiane Quina, a French aper­i­tif wine that has been in pro­duc­tion since 1865. This aper­i­tif wine is know in France as “ouvre l’ap­pétit” or the key to the appetite. This is fit­ting since the word aper­i­tif derives from the Latin aperire, which is the verb “to open”, relat­ing to open­ing up one’s appetite. All aper­i­tifs uti­lize a bit­ter­sweet char­ac­ter that stim­u­lates the pro­duc­tion of the gas­tric juices and pro­motes appetite.

Bonal Gen­tiane Quina shares many char­ac­ter­is­tics with ver­mouth, amari and char­treuse. That’s because it’s an infu­sion of gen­tian root, cin­chona (qui­nine) and herbs of the Grand Char­treuse moun­tains, all in a Mis­telle base (for­ti­fied wine). Mis­telle is the result of adding alco­hol (usu­al­ly brandy) to the juice of crushed grapes rather than fer­ment­ing them to pro­duce the alco­hol. This tech­nique offers a sweet­er, fresh fruit tone since the fruc­tose has­n’t been con­vert­ed to alcohol.

Bonal Gen­tiane Quina has a red­dish brown col­or and an upfront smell of prunes or raisins. Upon sip­ping I first noticed fla­vors of raisins/grapes. The mid-palette con­tains the bit­ter ele­ments from the gen­tian root and cin­chona. It fin­ish­es sweet with grapes and hints of cher­ry and licorice.

I can see Bonal going very well with brown spir­its, espe­cial­ly brandy and cognacs to make a per­fect stirred cock­tail to start your night off proper.

Around $20 a bot­tle (16% alcohol/32 proof)

Vieux Carré with Bonal

Most recipes that use sweet ver­mouth can be swapped out with Bonal.

  • 1 oz Cognac
  • 1 oz rye whiskey
  • 1 oz Bonal
  • 1/4 oz Benedictine
  • 1 dash of Peychaud’s bitters
  • 1 dash of Angos­tu­ra bitters
  • 1 lemon twist

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