Margerum's Amaro is an ideal addition to a gift for the true foodie and wine aficianado.

How it’s made: Doug Margerum’s AMARO is wine fortified with barrel aged brandy, herbs (sage, thyme, marjoram, parsley, lemon verbena, rosemary and mint to name a few), bark, roots, dried orange peel and caramelized simple syrup. The wine has been aged in barrique outdoors and in. The final result is 23% alcohol and 16% residual sugar. Forty individual ingredients make up the final blend.

Inspiration for the name: Amaro is Italian for "bitter" and wines in this digestive category are referred to as Amaro.

Inspiration for the image: Use a magnifying glass to look at the front image on the label. It is very cool. There is a two-faced winged man standing on a mezza luna, clutching a goblet of snakes with a skull tree and solitary bird by his side. What could be possibly more appropriate?

Uses: You can drink it neat (one or two oz.) after dinner as a digestive. It can also be used as the bitter component for a Perfect Manhattan. 

Background: Amaro (plural is Amari) is an Italian herbal liqueur, commonly drunk as an after-dinner digestif. It is bitter and sweet, sometimes syrupy, usually with an alcohol content between 16% and 35%. Amari are produced by macerating herbs, roots, flowers and bark in brandy, mixing with sugar syrup, and allowing the mixture to age in casks or in bottle. Commercially produced Amari may contain "natural flavorings" and caramel coloring. A typical Amaro is flavored with several (sometimes several dozen) herbs and roots. Amari are typically flavored with gentian, angelica, cinchona bark, lemon verbena (cedrina), juniper, anise, fennel, ginger, mint, thyme, sage, bay laurel, citrus peel, cardamom, wormwood (assenzio) and centaurea minor. Amari are typically drunk neat.

Size: 375