How to enjoy the sweet life with drinks that leave a bitter taste in your mouth

Gary Law

Michael Caine as Batman’s butler Alfred with a glass of Fernet Branca in the 2012 movie, The Dark Knight Rises

June 11 2022 07:00 AM

The Italians call it ‘amaro’, in France it’s a ‘digestif’ — here it would be ‘Oh my God, that’s stinkin’. What am I talking about? It’s that family of bitter liqueurs much revered by discerning Europeans as an after-dinner delight, yet here in the land of the bun and the traybake, they cause most people to pull a face after one sip and push their glass away.

Bitter liqueurs have been dividing drinkers for a couple of centuries or more. They’re the Marmite of the drinks world, blending alcohol with all manner of herbs and spices and varying dramatically in strength. But invariably they have one thing in common — a mouth-puckering sharpness. They’re as bitter as Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard.

Bitter liqueurs used to be really unfashionable, the sort of thing some unshaven old geezer would be seen sipping alone at a down-at-heel pavement café in Berlin or on a park bench in Rome far too early in the morning. But with the explosion in popularity of the Aperol Spritz and the Negroni — and indeed the enthusiasm for Jagermeister shots — they’ve been redicovered by today’s bright young things. Try an Aperol without the Prosecco and you’ll find it a surprisingly bitter spirit infused with the likes of rhubarb and gentian; take the Campari out of a Negroni and brace yourself for a sharp hit of bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruit.

While Aperol and Campari are more often drunk as aperitifs to stimulate the appetite, the real giants of the bitters world are intended for after the meal, as a soothing balm to settle the stomach — like when you’ve realised you really shouldn’t have had that chateaubriand all to yourself.

There’s no hard proof that these pungent, herby concoctions will actually have any settling effect on your overloaded tum, but some of them are so bitter and medicinal, you’ll be convinced they must be doing some good. Bitter liqueurs do take a bit of getting used to, but once you’ve taken the plunge, you may get to like them. And there are legions of devotees out there who swear by them — although you may just end up swearing at them.

Anyway, here’s five that are worth a try if you fancy a bitter experience.

Fernet Branca: the grandaddy of all bitters, this Milanese liqueur is made from a secret recipe involving 27 herbs, roots and spices, among them saffron, cinnamon, rhubarb, camomile, galangal and myrrh. There’s also a mint version called Brancamenta. Apparently, Fernet Branca and Coke is the national drink of Argentina.

Unicum: Distilled by the Zwack family of Budapest for more than 200 years, this strident digestif is aged for six months in oak casks and comes in a distinctive globular bottle. It’s said the family gave their communist rulers a fake recipe after the factory was nationalised in 1948, allowing relatives to flee to America with the real recipe before bringing it back to Budapest 40 years later.

Gammel Dansk: A favourite of the Danes for keeping the Baltic cold at bay, some are known to start the day with a quick nip of the stuff. Launched in 1964 by a distiller whose sales were in sharp decline, it saved the business and subsequently became a national treasure. The 29 herbs and spices used include angelica root, nutmeg, aniseed, ginger and rowan berries. Gammel Dansk has recently introduced a ‘toned-down’ version, called Halvbitter, sweetened with honey and liquorice.

Underberg: In German grocery stores, you’ll nearly always find little 20cl paper-wrapped bottles of this concoction lurking near the till. Where we would have piles of sweets, the Germans have 44% alcohol miniatures. The recipe is a closely guarded secret, using herbs and spices from 43 countries, and if you log onto their website you can hear the Underberg Song, a cheesy Eurojingle penned in the 1970s to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March.

Suze: Made from wild gentian grown in the mountains of France and Switzerland and launched at the Paris World Fair in 1889, it became hugely popular thanks to striking Belle Epoque advertisements and the depiction of a bottle in one of Picasso’s artworks. Despite this, not a single US importer bothered to bring Suze stateside until 2012. Usually drunk before a meal rather than after, it has sharp citrus and earthy notes and pairs well with tonic, soda and sparkling wine.

All of these bitter liqueurs come from that list of things headed ‘acquired tastes.’ If you try one, you probably won’t like it at first. And the second one won’t be much better. But you never know, something may click eventually, and then when you discover you’ve overindulged at the dinner table, you’ll wave away the cheeseboard and plead instead for a drink that’ll make your toes curl.

garylaw323@gmail.com

How to enjoy the sweet life with drinks that leave a bitter taste in your mouth

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