Featured Issues

— No. 121 —

Strega

Hal­loween is just around the cor­ner, so what bet­ter liquor to fea­ture than Stre­ga (Ital­ian for witch). Leg­end has it that the town of Ben­even­to, where Stre­ga has been made since 1860, was the meet­ing ground of all the witch­es of the world. I keep pic­tur­ing a gag­gle of witch­es sit­ting around a bub­bling caul­dron, cack­ling and stir­ring the 70 ghoul­ish ingre­di­ents that make up this liquor. Beyond the con­nec­tion to Hal­loween, You’ve got to love the tra­di­tion. Today Stre­ga is …

— No. 120 —

Suze

Suze Gen­tiane Liqueur is a bit­ter aper­i­tif that’s been pro­duced in France since 1889. Although, I did hear this lat­est recipe has been toned down a bit for the mod­ern con­sumer. It’s cre­ator, Fer­nand Moureaux, cen­tered this liqueur around the fla­vor from yel­low gen­tian root. The wild gen­tian is har­vest­ed from the moun­tains of the Jura and Auvergne regians. Gen­tian root is the main ingre­di­ent in bit­ters and is the main cul­prit for the bit­ter prop­er­ties. Oth­er notable fla­vors are vanil­la and …

— No. 118 —

Zucca

Zuc­ca’s bit­ter­sweet fla­vor pro­file is some­where between Cam­pari and Amaro with a high­light of smokey, earthy, wood tones. So con­sid­er this when you are com­ing up with cock­tail recipes to uti­lize this liqueur in. When sip­ping you may detect the fla­vors of gen­tian, car­damom, vanil­la, smoke and a hint of cit­rus.