Amaro dell'Etna

Sip after dinner with a friend.

Nose: Dried orange peel and bitter citrus come first, with a backing of licorice root and fresh anise.

Palate: Medium-bodied with a clean bitterness that doesn't overstay its welcome. Rhubarb is the standout — spicy and bittersweet alongside sarsaparilla, bitter cherry, and a coffee bean quality that keeps things grounded.

Finish: Moderately long, with black tea tannins, a lingering anise note, and a pleasant, dry bitterness at the back of the throat.

Amaro dell'Etna is made by washing more than 26 herbs and aromatic plants, extracting their aromas, and blending them into a water-and-sugar syrup that then matures for over two months a patient process that's surprisingly hands-off for something so complex.

• The man behind Amaro dell'Etna's original recipe wasn't a distiller or an apothecary he was essentially a first responder of his time. Giuseppe Calì Tabuso created the formula in 1901 specifically to revive exhausted sailors and dockworkers on Sicily's rugged coastline.
• Amaro dell'Etna is produced at the base of one of the world's most active volcanoes, Mount Etna.
• Most amari lean hard into one or two dominant flavors and let everything else play backup. Amaro dell'Etna pulls off something genuinely unusual expert tasters picked up bitter cherry, anise, coffee bean, and black tea all at once, without any of them muscling the others out, and without the sugar-bomb sweetness that makes some amari feel like cough syrup dressed up for dinner.