One evening after dinner, a friend from Palermo asked me, “So, dolce now?” To understand the joke, you have to leave dolce in Italian. In English, it simply means “sweet,” but in Italian it also means dessert. At the time, I had only just started living in this sweet country, so I assumed he was talking about dessert and was genuinely surprised. After all the aperitifs and wine we’d already had during dinner, it didn’t seem to make much sense. Smiling at my confusion, he replied: “Amaro!” — which literally means “bitter” in Italian and refers to a bittersweet digestif.
The Sicilian amaro Averna is famous all over the world. Amara is still much less well known internationally, which is exactly why I want to draw your attention to it. Today, it is my favorite amaro.
It is produced on the slopes of Mount Etna from the peel of Sicily’s famous blood oranges, local spring water, and wild herbs. According to the producer, the orange peel is removed by hand and used to create seven separate infusions. Each infusion is prepared individually before they are blended together to create the final liqueur.
The name of this digestif is another Italian play on words, just like the story of the arancina. Since the liqueur is made from an orange, and the Italian word arancia is feminine, our amaro is called Amara.