Stuff You Should Know - That's Amaro!

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Amaro is a delicious traditional liqueur, usually from Italy, that has delighted diners and drinkers for centuries. Tune in to learn all about this wonderful digestif. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and Chuck's here too. It's just the two of us, flying solo, up in the friendly skies. Yeah, and that makes this stuff you should know. That's right. I've had the... Do you ever make up dumb songs in your head?

No, actually, I don't. I have other people's songs in my head a lot, but I don't make up my own typically. I make up dumb songs in my head all the time. Like what? Oh, well, I mean, in this case, it's about a morrow, but it can be anything. Just something will happen or there will be a brand or something in the house and sometimes it sounds like something else in a song and so I'll just kind of do like a weird owl version of that, make it up.

Are they like ballads? In your Amaro song, is Amaro falling in love and then jilted and then, you know, dies? No, no, no, no. This is a riff. I'll go ahead and sing it if you'd like. This one was because Dave Ruse helped us with this one. And when Dave sent this in, he said, you know, Dave's not much of a drinker. So he said, but he tried Amaro for this and he said it tasted like robotussin.

I did not see that. He tried it. He tried drinking for this. That's amazing. Way to go, Dave. I think he wanted to see what it was like, you know, so he had a little sip and said it, you know, I had that in, of course, Amaro is known for its sort of medicinal taste. And so I've been singing, here's a good example, and it's so dumb.

When the bitter hits your tongue like a robotussin, that's Amaro. That was great. So I do things like that all the time around the house and my Emily and Ruby both think I'm just sort of strange. I think it's very pleasant and I wish you'd sing around me more. You want to move in? You and Yumi can move in and you'd be like, this guy's got to quit singing. Yeah, we quickly move back out.

I'm having Amaro right now, actually. Oh, yeah, I don't have any Amaro and I would like some. I don't, I haven't decided which kind yet. I'm just going to start with one, but it's been a while for me. I just, I thought, you know, I poured up a little, geez, what is the big side of a jigger? Is that an ounce or a half ounce? I mean, it depends. You can get two ounce and one ounce, three quarter ounce and half ounce.

It just depends. This looks like about a half ounce. I mean, it's just a couple of sips. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's nothing. Yeah. What kind? This is Maledi and I'll get to how I acquired this at some point in the podcast.

Okay. Well, for those of you who are like, what the heck is Amaro, well, prepare to learn because we're going to teach you what Amaro is and to put it in very basic terms, it is a bitter sweet. Some people would just say just bitter liqueur, which means a liqueur is any kind of alcohol that is sweetened with sugar. And so Amaro is a specific kind of liqueur, a bitter liqueur. That's right.

And it is a digestive. It is largely Italian, although there are plenty of countries who make their Amaro's. And I never really thought of Jagermeister as an Amaro, but apparently it's considered a German Amaro. Yeah, an herbal Amaro. Yeah. But it's generally Italian. The history is Italian and there are, if you go to the Amaro section, you're going

to see a lot of Italian words. Yeah. And you're going to be busting out your Italian accent quite a bit in this episode, I think. Here and there. I don't want to overdo it. So Amaro's been around. It's been a big hit in Italy and Europe, France, since the 19th century, at least, possibly back into the 18th century in some places.

But in America, it wasn't till like the cocktail renaissance of the 10s, I guess, that Amaro really kind of found its place. And I mean, it's been here for a while. Campari is a type of Amaro called the bitter red. And it's, I mean, everybody knows what Campari is and maybe slightly fewer people know what Aperol is. But both of those are technically Amaro, but when you get into the world of Amaro, you realize like, oh, there's like a whole galaxy out there.

But the one thing that they have in common is they have an alcohol base, a lot of bitter coloring agents, and then all sorts of other botanical ingredients, and each one is proprietary. Each one is typically a secret, and each one is its own blend. Like there's very few, if any, people making the same kind of Amaro. Like I think every single kind of Amaro, even ones in the same group, are just different. They're not the same thing. Yeah. And there are hundreds of Amari, and Amari is the plural, you wouldn't say different

Amaro's. If you want to get it right, you say Amari. And there are hundreds of Amari all over Italy. And like you said, they're all proprietaryly blended in what you'll usually see because they still want to sell their stuff and market some of the tastes. So if you look up how they taste, they'll usually include like a handful of the botanicals and then say, and the rest are only for us to know, that kind of thing. Right.

We'd have to kill you. Right. We'd have to be prepared to die. That's right. I don't know if it's right, but sure. So to make Amaro is actually very easy. You just take like a base alcohol, usually between 14, and I've seen as much as like 40, 45% proof, or 45 proof I should say.

No, percent, that's right. Proof is double the percentage, right? 80 to 90 proof. And then you just soak some bittering agents and herbs, whatever your proprietary blend is. You let it soak for a little while. Sometimes you might re-distill it with the herbs and botanicals in it, but a lot of people just let it sit for a while.

And then I think that's called macerating or infusing when you just basically say here, genshin, meat, moonshine essentially. Yeah. And then you add a little sugar after you filter out the solids, and then you let it age for several years, many years, however many years you want to wait. And then you've got yourself a bitter liqueur known as Amaro. Yeah. And that base alcohol can vary a lot of times.

It will be grappa, which is great brandy, but not always. I see Dave put most, but I don't even know if I would say most, or would you say most? I couldn't see. I have the impression that most Italian Amaro or Amari is grappa, yes, or wine. Well, but what they don't do is that kind of stuff isn't on the label because it doesn't really matter. It matters, but when you get something like this, the bottle won't say, you know, with a base alcohol of plain spirits or with grappa or with white wine or whatever.

Or white lightning. Exactly. And the bitter is really sort of what it's all about. Italians are big on bitter. They, you know, espresso is very bitter, radicchio, arugula, they've always sort of been on the leading edge of bitter things. Yeah. I saw Chuck, an Italian saying, I couldn't find the Italian, but it translates to, because

of bitter, we know sweet. Oh, really? Yeah. They like their bitter. They appreciate it for sure. And then it says, give us a kiss. Because did you already say that Amaro meant bitter in Italian? I don't think we did, actually.

Yeah. So there's the giveaway right there. Right. And bitter is something, I'm not sure if we even, if I was even on to bitter when we talked about the tongue episode, I don't think I was because my bitter appreciation has really come on strong in the last like two or three years. Yeah. I don't know why.

I always hated bitter things. Age, I would say. Maybe, because I have noticed like different flavor profiles are hitting me in these, in my elderly years. Right. But things like espresso and like, I don't sweeten any like coffees or, I used to like sweeten lattes and things like that. But I love espresso now, and I love arugula and radicchio, and I love Amaro.

And so bitter or something, I've really kind of grown, grown, it's grown on me, I guess. Yeah. And here, especially as I've aged, I've always despised bitter stuff, but now I can sometimes choke down a bite of grapefruit even. Right. Oh, you know what? I haven't tried grapefruit in a while, because I always said I didn't like it, because it was bitter.

I like fresh... Maybe it's time. Grapefruit juice with fresh squeezed orange juice, about one to one ratio, that's a really good jam. But just eating the grapefruit is a completely different experience than drinking the juice, and it's tough for me. Oh, really? Yeah.

All right. I'm going to think of my mom, who, you know, 70s mom, that half a grapefruit on the kitchen table in the morning, in the little... Was that weird little sort of two-sided knife thing that would carve out the sections? The grapefruit spoon. Well, it wasn't a spoon, though. It was a knife. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about, then.

Maybe she saw it on TV. It was a little knife with a very short blade, and both sides of the blade had a sort of odd serrated edge, but not like a steak knife serrated edge. Right, right. Like a micro serrated edge, almost, right? Yeah, and then you would just sort of carve your way around it, and that's why both sides were done, because you would loop around the slice or whatever. So I've seen spoons with that same serrated edge that are grapefruit spoons.

Okay. I'll have to check that out, too. I've not seen the knife, though. I wonder what the grapefruit fork looks like. I have no idea. So should we talk about a few of the bittering agents? There's like a big three, but the list is really extensive. Yeah.

For sure. So you have Genshin, which may be the most popular of all of them. It's a root that grows in the alpine, or it's a plant that grows in alpine regions, and its roots are prized for their bitterness, and it shows up all over the place. Starting from Capari to some of the more arcane, hardcore Amari, it's just in a lot of different stuff. And we should say it's not like you have to pick just one bittering agent. It's a lot of people do, but you can kind of mix it up for your own proprietary blend.

There's no rules. Sure. Actually, there are rules, and we'll get into them later. Well, that's true. Wormwood, which we talked about in the Absinthe episode, where we also mentioned the Gypsons Malort, I mean, that's so bitter. And there's other things going on in there, like that's even too much for me. But the Wormwood is a classic bittering agent, and it is, I'm not sure if we mentioned this

in the Absinthe, but it is an herb, a small leafed herb that's kind of all over Europe. Yeah, for sure. And then you've got Cinchona. I think it's Cinchona. Cinchona? Yeah, I looked it up. I think we said Cinchona a lot in the gin and tonic episode, and we were wrong. Okay, so Cinchona, which is, I mean how it's spelled, but it comes from, it's a tree, it's

a bark of a tree in South America. It's where you get quinine, which they use to treat malaria, and is what gives tonic water its very bitter taste. Yeah. So a lot of Amari use Cinchona in it, and you'll see on the label something that says China. That's Cinchona. But it's actually, I think actually, I think it's pronounced Kina or Kina.

Oh, really? Yeah, because the C-H, I took Italian in college. Sure. And the C-H sound is a- It could be a K. Right? Yeah, yeah. Just a C-I would be the C-H sound.

Wait, you took Italian? Yeah, I took Italian. Why aren't you doing the voice? I never got it down. Yours is way better than mine. I could converse in it, I just couldn't offend them. You sounded like a guy Italian by way of Toledo. Pretty much.

Pretty much. Oh, this is, I have a story about that, so I took French for like three years in high school and never, never cracked like the first layer of my brain cells and just would not sit. Yeah. And then I got to college and I took Italian and it clicked. Like I was Italian in my last life and lived 110 or something, like it clicked like that. And I made it all the way to the final.

And this has never happened to me before. I sat down to take the final and it was gone, all of it gone. It was one of the most surprising things that's ever happened to me. You just blanked. It's cool. Yeah, I couldn't believe it and I couldn't get it back, so I did terrible on the final bit. Wow.

I did well enough in class to still make a good grade, but it was more like, I don't like that my brain is capable of doing that. Right. Yeah. Just crapping out when you must need it. Yeah. It was like, sorry pal, I'm sick today. Oh, that's too bad, I'm sorry to hear that.

Yeah, me too. I got accused of cheating on my German final in college and was not able to prove my innocence. Oh no. I didn't cheat. Did you use some chat GPT? You know, I just now remember that memory and I don't remember what the rub was or why Frau, whatever her name was, thought I cheated.

But it was a thing and I don't even remember, you know how you just block stuff out? Right. I don't remember the result of it, to be honest. I just know I didn't cheat, that's the only thing I know. Maybe one of her students is listening and we'll get in touch with her and she can get in touch with you and say, like, I believe you now, like your Shakespeare teacher. Yeah, I should get fans on it. Right.

But they didn't mess around, you know, English professors don't go over to the foreign language departments. That's just not something you do. I guess not. So let's talk about some of these botanicals that can go in there too. Because we'll talk a little bit more, you know, throughout about the digestive properties of this, not only digestive, but I guess, what is it, aperitif as well? Yeah, you know, like not all Amari are digestive, they're aperitif as well.

You can use them both. It just depends on what side of a meal you drink it on really. But they're supposed to be the same thing. Like they're supposed to aid in digestion either before the meal or after the meal. Right. And there are all kinds of great botanicals you can put in there. I mean, we won't. Chuck, do you mind?

Anything of singing? Oh, do you have a song for this? I mean, I was just going to read them off in kind of a sing song way. Please do. We may or may not leave this in. Okay. Artichoke, orange peel, caraway and chamomile, coriander, nut, nutmeg and licorice, marjoram, cloves, cinnamon and fennel, quinoa in Italian, orange variety, rhubarb, angelica, myrrh and

cardamom, pomegranate, star anise and cesperilla, not only the flavor of root beer, but a traditional treatment for syphilis, mint, oris and jopan, holly and evergreen shrub, native to the American South West. Wow. I wish you could have done that as meagol. I think the microphone would have exploded in ecstasy. Yeah. This is stuff you should know if it's just like folded in on itself or something.

We'd wake up in some weird dimension. You talked about the ABV, you know, generally it's known as like, I mean, you said you can get one that packs a punch that's like a full, you know, 80 proof or so. But Amaro is generally known as a slightly lighter weight liquor. And if you're looking for a not quite as boozy drink, you can have like an Amaro spritzer or something like that. And it's usually a little tamed down from like a big liquor drink. Yeah.

Definitely. I mean, the point isn't to get hammered off of Amaro. No. I mean, you can if you want to, but that's certainly not the point of it. Well, I've learned recently that too much Amaro in one sitting is like there's a digestive quality and then there's a digestive quality. You know what I'm saying? Sure.

I know what you mean. Yeah. That's not what you want. That's not the point you want to attain. No. One or two is great. Sure. And that's it.

Yeah. So I'm sure some people are out there thinking like, I know all this. You're talking about cocktail bitters, you morons. Why don't you just call them cocktail bitters? Well, that's because cocktail bitters are actually different. They're very, very, very similar, but they're different. Cocktail bitters are usually made using much higher proof alcohol, much higher amounts of bittering agents.

I've seen as much as 50% of the total content could be a bittering agent. So they're super bitter. And oftentimes there's no additional sugar. So they wouldn't constitute a liqueur. What's more is you're only supposed to use a few drops, a dash or two, of cocktail bitters. Whereas with an Amaro, you actually drink like an ounce or two. It's a drink. It's not something you add to a drink.

But they're so close that people differentiate cocktail bitters and Amari by calling Amari potable or drinkable bitters or just bitter liqueur. Wait, is there alcohol in bitters? Oh, yes. Like, you usually start with something like moonshine or white lightening or like 151 proof realm. Yeah. How do they get away with selling that in grocery stores or do they?

Because you drink so little of it. I mean, even anybody who needed to drink more than anybody else would not turn up a bottle of bitters. I would put money on it never having happened. My granddad probably would have. Oh yeah? He was one of those alcoholics. Well anyone who's ever made a bet with me knows I'm really good at making terrible bets.

Well he was one of those like 1940s alcoholics that like, hey, the mouthwash has booze in it and there's nothing else in the house, that kind of thing. Yeah, but I bet he still wouldn't have drank a bottle of bitters. I don't think you could. You know, they may not sell it in grocery stores here now that I think about it. They do? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Because I know people like in Los Angeles, you can buy, you know, their liquor. There's liquor in grocery stores. There's liquor in their drugstores. It's so bizarre. It is very strange. It's super convenient though. It is very convenient. But in grocery stores, you can buy Angostura usually, which is like, I mean, that's the

universal bitter. Yeah, which is great. I love it. Vermouth, now this is where I'm going to lean on you a little bit, but Vermouth and Amaro do have a lot in common and it is also an alcohol. It is also infused with bitters and botanicals. And it is also bittersweet and used as a bittersweetening agent in cocktails. Right.

It is very wormwood forward, but in fact, I believe it's the French spelling of the German word for wormwood, which is W-E-R-Muth, Vermouth. Right. With a W. Right. Does that make sense? No, it totally makes sense. In Vermouth, it bears a striking resemblance to Amaro because, like we said earlier, some

Amari have wine as their base, not Grappa or another spirit. So I mean, the distinction between a Vermouth and a Vino Amaro, as it's called, is found in the fact that your Vermouth is actually spiked with booze, typically brandy. So that right there differentiates it. But by spiking a wine with booze, you've created what's like a class called a fortified wine. Yeah. It's fortified with booze. Like sherry is a fortified wine.

Sherry, Vermouth, a port, and then there's a whole bunch of other like specific wines like Bonnol is really good fortified wine. But there's a subclass of fortified wine called an aromatized wine. And Vermouth is technically an aromatized wine because that is a fortified wine that has many of the same botanicals and bittering agents that you'll find in Amari, right? The difference again is that in Amari, they don't spike it like a Vino Amaro with an extra bit of booze. It's that extra booze in Vermouth that is the only thing that differentiates it from

some kinds of Amaro. Right. And Vermouth always has to have the wine component and Amaro doesn't necessarily have to, right? No, that's right. I'm going to recommend, and I hope people that are into this kind of thing have their pencil and pad out to write down some of these recs, but for you as well, my friend, I found a very nice sweet Vermouth that is made in Napa Valley called the Mathiason, and it is really tasty.

I will check that out. I'm a carpano antica person myself. Yeah. I mean, those are classics, but this is a nice small batch handmade in America kind of thing. I will definitely try it. I will try it, especially if they mail it to us for free. We should try a break. Yeah?

Yeah, it's like 20 minutes in. We got so excited. Wait, what are you drinking? I'm drinking lemon water. Okay. It's spiked with moonshine. All right, we'll be right back every time. What's up, y'all?

This is Questlove, and at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends, Sugar Steve, Laia, Vontigolo, Umpay Bill, and we, you know, at Questlove Supreme like the nerd out and do deep dives with musicians, actors, and politicians, and journalists. We give you the stories behind all your favorite artists and creatives that you have never heard. I'm talking about stories behind their life journeys and their works of art. I love QLS because of the QLS team supreme, they're like a second family to me. You're a fan of deep diving and music, everything, all monacking your musical history and learning

things about hip hop artists and things you never thought, then you're a lot like me. But you're also a fan of Questlove Supreme. One of the things I love the most about this show is that we get to learn from the masters. I look at being on this show as my graduate program in music. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the I Heart Radio app, or podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup.

Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullock. And I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a darkly comedic, and occasionally ridiculous, deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic, historical recreations of moments left out of your history

books. I'm Smedley Butler, and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring, and mind-blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads, or do we just have to do the ads? From I Heart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the I Heart Radio app, or podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows.

MySpace was the first major social media company. They made the internet, which up until then had been kind of like a nerdy space, feel like a nightclub, and also slightly dangerous. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. Rupert Murdoch lost lots and lots of money on MySpace, because it turned out it was actually not a good business. My name is Joanne McNeil. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, the story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days

of social media through the people who lived it, the users, because what happened in the MySpace era would have sweeping implications for all the platforms to follow. Listen to Main Accounts, the story of MySpace, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. You know, I was going to make the joke that I'm a method podcaster by having this tomorrow, and then I remember that that was one of the very first things I said on the show. You did. Do you remember that?

Yeah. Of course I remember. It's the first episode, right? Very first episode, orange, juice, and toothpaste. Right. You are, and you long have been a method podcaster. I mean, you were talking about eating honey butter in the Honey episode. Yeah.

Eating honey butter in the Toast episode. Yeah. You're a method podcaster for sure. Should we talk about the pretty interesting history of tomorrow? Yeah, because it tracks pretty closely the history of spirits and booze in general, essentially. Yeah, and shout out, because Dave used this book for a lot of this research from a mixologist from Italy named Matteo Zed, called The Big Book of Tomorrow. No colon.

That's it. It's awesome. I love that. Congratulations, Matteo Zed. So refreshing. Who is not dead. He was like, oh, you can use a colon? He didn't even know.

I don't want these jackasses to use that stupid colon thing again. You sounded like Italian by way of the Bronx. That's what I'm saying. I don't do it very well. That's good. That's why you're the Italian accent guy. I thought you were about to say the Italian Italian. I'll call you that too, especially if you sing around me more.

All right. So if you want to talk about basically distillation as a whole, you need to go back to Arab alchemists in the 7th and 8th centuries, which is who learn how to do this stuff. And pretty soon after they learn how to get ethanol going, they said, you know what? We're just starting infusing it and drinking it because infusing things is probably as old as time because not only does it impart flavor to something that you're drinking, but in many cases, and that's true with Amaro early on, it was a way to actually preserve the botanicals and the herbs and make them last longer.

Right. So they also figured out that they could distill more than just fermented alcohol or alcohol from fermented liquid. They could distill the essential oils from all those things too and then mix that together. And they were like, these essential oils, they really pack a punch. They must be incredibly medicinal. And so the earliest cocktails, the earliest reason that people were putting together spirits and botanicals was for medicinal purposes.

And they think that the first cocktail was probably a julab, which means rose water, which ironically was probably an infusion of violets rather than roses with sugar and alcohol, which would make it liqueur because there's alcohol that's sugared and it sounds a lot like creme de violette, which is a great creme liqueur. I've never had that. Something, oh Chuck, it's so good. Have you ever had an aviation? I've had aviation gin, but not an aviation.

Okay. So it's gin, probably pretty good with aviation gin and creme de violette. And I think a little maraschino liqueur and it is beautiful, but it's this gorgeous violet light purpley color. Oh, interesting. It's really gorgeous. And I think there's another one called blue moon that uses it too, but those are like the big two, but it's a creme liqueur, not a creme liqueur, a creme liqueur.

And I found out from this research that they call it creme because these types of liqueurs have so much sugar in it that it gives it almost a creamy texture. Oh, interesting. Yeah. But a creme liqueur would actually have some sort of cream to it. This is a creme liqueur. So creme de violette, creme de menthe, it just means there's so much sugar in it that you could stand a straw up in it, basically.

I never knew that. I didn't either until like yesterday. Yeah. Oh, interesting. So did you think there was a dairy agent to those things? I didn't because it's clearly not there, you know? I thought maybe they like creamed the violets or something like it was part of the process. Yeah.

Yeah. That's kind of what I thought. Now my eyes are wide open. I said, just go milk that flower and bring me some creme from it. So these, the things that these Arab alchemists were doing eventually, of course, found their way to Italy and this is like 12th, 13th century. And if you want to get some booze made, there are a lot worse places to go than your local monastery.

For sure. They've always been big on it and the monks got ahold of it. And in the year 1300, a very sort of lucky, unlucky thing happened at the same time, which is Pope Boniface VIII got kidney stones and was at least thought cured in part by this alcoholic confusion of bitter roots and herbs. And if you want to like really market your product in 1300, say this is the stuff that saved the Pope. Right.

Exactly. And a lot of those monks too were alchemists. And this is definitely where that comes together, alchemy and monasteries, creating their own blend of aqua vitae or elixir of life. And again, they're taking this stuff to do all sorts of curative or therapeutic stuff. They were medicinal drinks, but it didn't take them very long to figure out, it gives you a pretty good buzz too. And by the 16th century, I believe people were like, just give me that, I want to drink

it. I don't have anything wrong with me. I'm not trying to do anything different. I don't want a prescription. I just want to drink this stuff because it's pretty good. Yeah, exactly. And then when the sugar from the New World arrived in Europe and the spice trade was so robust and all these spices were coming in from the East and South America and from

the South, all of a sudden, you had everything you needed. And I think in the 17th century, Venice and Florence had a really robust spice trade going on. And of course, they kind of spread that to the different monasteries that were making this booze. Right. And all of a sudden, you had this sugary component and more spices. And this is kind of when like Amaro, as we know it today, feels like it was really born.

Yeah, for sure. And one of the reasons it was born in Italy was because it was such a crossroad. Like you were saying, there's all these spices making their way to it and they already had this tradition that they'd gotten from their Arab friends of making these medicinal liqueurs. So they were just making them better and better. And then by the 18th and 19th centuries, apothecaries and pharmacists were like, give me those. I'm going to start selling these. And then eventually it transmuted from, which is appropriate because we're talking about

alchemy, from a medicinal drink, again, or some sort of elixir that was meant to make you feel better, to just straight up booze. And at that point, it became like it really took off in the 19th century. Yeah, and that's if you look at not all of them, but like most of the classic Amari that you'll find from Italy in the modern liquor stores today will have some sort of 19th century date on the bottle very proudly. They've been around for a long time. Kempari, like you said, is kind of the, like if you're putting together a bar for the first

time and you look up like, what kinds of different things should I get that aren't just like the main liquors, Kempari will probably be on that list. It's that red in the clear bottle, that red liqueur that you see that when you don't know what it is, you're like, I've seen that thing at every bar I've ever been to. And I just never knew what it was. And Gasparicampari, who was from Nevada, Italy, started experimenting in the 1840s with the recipe, didn't finalize it till close to 20 years later in 1860 and opened up Cafe Kempari and Milan.

And that's where the drink, the Americano was born, which is very simple as Kempari, Italian vermouth and some soda water. Right. And in this case, the Americano is not named after us Americans. Amer is the French word for bitter. So this is a play on that. Americano is a bitter drink. When you mention how bright red Kempari is, it actually comes from carmine, the big ragu,

which is a natural dye that they make from a certain kind of insect, the cochineal insect. They crush it up. They dry it out, crush it up and increase this red powder that's been used as a dye for centuries. Yeah. And they did that all the way until 2006, which is really surprising. Now it's synthesized, but I believe there are some sort of small bachamari that are made around the world that still use this method of crushing the bugs.

Definitely. So that whole thing, remember, Aperol Kempari, they're called the red bitters. That's their classification. There's a whole bunch of red bitters out there and one of them, Capoletti, has been using carmine the whole time and still does. And I read that it's actually a much better ingredient in a Negroni because it's less sweet than Kempari, so it has like a more balanced finish. And I don't think I've ever read many more words that maybe want to try a liqueur more

than that. Oh, because do you usually not like a Negroni? I love a Negroni. That's the thing. Oh, okay. I gotcha. I gotcha. I'm into like an improved Negroni.

Right. I mean, give it to me. A Negroni Plus. I love a Negroni too. It's a great drink. And the Negroni actually came from, where did that come from? I don't know. It came from somebody's cafe.

I want to say it came from a cafe Kempari, yeah, but there was a count whose name was Negroni. And I can't remember his first name. I can't find him anywhere. But he, oh, I'm sorry, his name, it was a cafe Kempari, Camillo Negroni. In 1920, he was a customer there at cafe Kempari. He said, I like this Americano. Yeah.

Pretty good. Can you give me something different? Our tender swapped out the soda water with gin and the first Negroni was made and Camillo Negroni was canonized the very next day. Oh, that's an interesting trade. I'll swap out the soda water for gin. This soda water is a waste of space. There's Amaro Averna.

It's a very popular Amaro. It's much sweeter. This is from 1868, was when they first started bottling this stuff. And this was one that came straight from Sicilian monks to a guy named Salvatore Averna. And it was sort of the thing he did for friends and family for a little while. And then his son said, hey, Papa, we should sell this stuff. And he said, go with God if you want to. I'm just going to be sitting over here in the shade.

What about Montenegro? That's your jam, right? Yeah, I love it. It was originally called Elisir Lungavita, the Elixir of Life. It's made with 40 botanicals, which is a middling amount of botanicals, typically for Amaro. It's right there in the middle, which is appropriate because Amaro Montenegro is like a really good introduction to real Amari.

But it came from Bologna, Italy, back in 1885, created by a guy named Stanisolo Colbianchi. And he was so enthralled with Princess Elena of Montenegro, who became Queen of Italy in 1900, that he renamed his Amari Amaro Montenegro. I love that story. And I saw a couple of great, at least two really good YouTube videos from Amaro enthusiasts. And one was this guy, I think he was originally from Italy. And then one was this Scottish woman who, of course, loved that accent. And they're like 9, 10, 11 minutes each.

And they do a really good job of sort of, you know, if you've never tried Amari, then here are like 10 different kinds that range from what the guy referred to as sort of like pastry-esque, all the way to super medicinal tasting. And the one they had in the middle is one I have on my shelf called the Lucano. But they both described Montenegro as a really good gateway Amaro for someone who's never really tried it, which makes me think, I still don't have a bottle, I'm gonna get one soon, but that it has an accessibility factor to it. Definitely.

And it's really useful in cocktails too, because it's very sweet as far as Amari go. It's a pretty sweet Amaro. And like Montenegro, like many others, got a rich golden color, some of them have a caramel color, some are brownish. And a lot of them really kind of share in common, like they have a brown taste. Like you could taste it, and if somebody who had already had it before, if you described it as brown, they would probably get what you were talking about. It's not just the color of the taste too.

But there's another kind of Amaro that's been around. It might be the oldest surviving continuously made Amaro recipe. And it comes from France, Chartreuse, which is another thing you've seen on American bars for decades and decades. It's a huge firm bar thing. And Chartreuse Verte in particular is green. And it was first brewed in like the 1730s, but it came from a recipe in 1605. And again, it's monks in a monastery making these recipes.

And still to this day, Chuck, there's only two, two monks at any given time who know the exact recipe. And they're the ones, again, still to this day, who order and blend the botanicals. And then they hand the blended herbs and spices off to the distillers who then take it and use it. But only two of them know what's in there. And there's 132 botanicals in Chartreuse. That is really something.

And then here's the fact of the podcast for me. The color Chartreuse got its name from the liqueur Chartreuse, not the other way around. It's older than the color. Isn't that neat? Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So that Chartreuse blouse you're wearing, it's named after Chartreuse Verte, the Amaro.

All right. Let's take a break. I've spilled some Amaro on my blouse and I need to go put the hairdryer on it and we'll be right back. What's up, y'all? This is Questlove. And, you know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends, Sugar Steve, Laia, Vontigolo, Unpaid Bill, and we, you know, at Questlove Supreme, like the nerd out and do deep dives

with musicians and actors and politicians and journalists. We give you the stories behind all your favorite artists and creatives that you have never heard. I'm talking about stories behind their life journeys and their works of art. I love QLS because of the QLS Team Supreme. They're like a second family to me. You're a fan of deep diving and music, everything, all monacking your musical history and learning things about hip hop artists and things you never thought, then you're a lot like me.

But you're also a fan of Questlove Supreme. One of the things I love the most about this show is that we get to learn from the masters. I look at being on this show as my graduate program in music. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app. Have a podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism.

I'm Ben Bullitt. And I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a darkly comedic, and occasionally ridiculous, deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic, historical recreations of moments left out of your history books.

I'm Smedley Butler and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring and mind-blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads or do we just have to do the ads? From iHeart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coup. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you find your favorite shows. MySpace was the first major social media company.

They made the internet, which up until then had been kind of like a nerdy space, feel like a nightclub and also slightly dangerous. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. Rupert Murdoch lost lots and lots of money on MySpace because it turned out it was actually not a good business. My name is Joanne McNeil. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, the story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days of social media through the people who lived it, the users.

Because what happened in the MySpace era would have sweeping implications for all the platforms to follow. Listen to Main Accounts, the story of MySpace on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you find your favorite shows. Okay, so we're back. And one of the things you mentioned very early on and repeatedly is that Amari is typically used as a digestive. You have a big old meal, eat a big steak, eat three, four dozen oysters, have a lobster

the size of like a VW beetle that you just ate. All sounds so good. A bunch of tacos. You might want to do a shot, but don't do a shot. You could do a shot, but you don't really want to do a shot. You want to sip a morrow, right? And then really enjoy the taste of it. But you'll be aiding in digestion.

True or false, Chuck? Yeah, I mean, kind of true. I don't know that there's been like lab studies, but the reasoning behind it is pretty sound, I think. I don't think it's like a big reach and it's like, oh, it's good for you. So it's fine to drink. But it sounds like it probably does what other bitter things do to your body. When the body, you know, gets a bitter taste in its mouth, we have evolved to think that

might be poison because there are so many bad plants in the world that are bitter. And that's a sure sign like, hey, don't eat this thing. And so the logic is basically you get a little amaro and your body says, hey, this is a low level poison kind of coming into my body. So let me kick this digestion off and see if we can work that through our system as quickly as possible. And then you've got all these like herbs and botanicals and things that also can, you know, aid in digestion and have natural anti-inflammatory properties.

And yeah, that's why it sort of has that medicinal taste to it is because it is slightly medicinal. I don't think it's some snake oil cure or anything, but I believe it's a legit digestive. Plus also the, a lot of those herbs are like hepatoprotective. So it helps your liver while it's processing all of that alcohol. It's, I mean, if you're going to drink a booze, it's, you could do a lot worse as far as like your, your systems are concerned. But on the other hand, there is a lot of criticism of, of drinking some amaro after a meal, especially a big meal, because alcohol actually slows digestion by as much as 50%.

Right. So it's actually slowing down your digestion, making you feel fuller longer. Plus it's extra calories that you have to now, you have to now process. But on the other hand, alcohol is a vasodilator. So it keeps your muscles from, from tightening, which means that your stomach can expand a little more to make you feel a little more relieved if you're super full. So the net net is it does nothing? Uh, I don't know, it might, I think I get the impression that, um, aperitifs do more

to stimulate appetite and get your juices going literally than a digest thief. And that what I saw was that you're much better off just spritzing some, um, actual bitters like cocktail bitters before a meal. And that that would be, that would probably be the best way to actually do it. Yeah. Emily will spray bitters in her mouth and stuff occasionally and that's, that's probably the way to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. But like I said, you're not even, if you're drinking Amaro the right way, you're not drinking a ton of it. Right. Um, so like an Amaro after a meal probably isn't like the worst thing in the world for you. No, but also it's not, like if you're, even if you're drinking it as a digest thief, what you're really doing is just finishing this meal in a really like luxurious, like calm

way. Yes. Absolutely. That's really the point of it. Yeah. I promise my Amaro history and I will shorten the story to this, which is I hadn't had it very much at all until like in various drinks, like Negronis and things, but not on its own. And it wasn't something I really kept in stock until about two-ish years ago, I follow the

actor Walton Goggins on Instagram and he makes his own liquor. He makes a Mulholland whiskey and gin, which are both great. We love the whiskey and I'm a huge fan of his. And he made a cocktail of just half bourbon and half Amaro to Angostura, Angostura makes their own like full size Amaro, same company makes the bitters and a little like orange peel, I think, express those oils in there and rub it around the rim and then just drop it in. And so I bought a bottle of it and I tried it and I loved it and then started collecting

another Amaro here or there and then this year at Christmas, we had an open house on Christmas Day this year for the first time, which have you ever had an open house type of party? My parents have. I never have. I think it was Ohio thing because I got this from Emily's parents, they used to do it too. And if you don't know what it is, it's basically when you host a party that's not like show

up at six and leave at midnight. It's like, hey, the house will be open from noon to six, drop by for a drink, stay if you want, but you can just breeze through as well. And we did that this year when we had so much fun. And my friend Thomas, who is the father of one of Ruby's friends and has become a friend of mine, brought as a very generous gift, three different Amaros for me. And he's the kind of guy that just really loves to, he's very generous and loves to share knowledge and turn people on to things.

So he brought me Foro, F-O-R-O, which is sort of, is very much sweeter, has like a coffee taste to it. Yeah. There's definitely coffee Amari. Yeah. That's one of them. He brought me Mileti, which I'm having now, which is sort of your standard dark bitter. And then the one I like the most is the Lucano.

It looks sort of like the St. Pauli girl in the ball. You've probably seen it before. Yeah. It's seen like old vintage posters of Lucano stuff. I've never had it. Yeah. It's just super bitter. I don't think, I've never had any of the Furnettes that's next on my list as I...

You're not going to like them. Really? Because I'm into the bitter. Is it so bitter? It's not good. It's not just bitter. It's a whole other class of things. It's not pleasant.

I don't understand people who like Furnettes. Is it like the Malort thing? A little bit, but menthol-y. Oh, interesting. I mean, it is interesting and people do like it, but I mean, I'll be surprised if you're a Furnette guy. Okay. Well, let me know for sure, but I'll be surprised.

I think, was it Furnette Bronca is the most popular? Yeah. Let's talk about this. Furnette is at the end of your story because it was a good story and then you want to go out and buy some Amari. Yeah. Big thanks to Thomas. And also to make friends with Thomas.

But yeah, Furnette is a class called a Bronca. No, it's called a Furnette. Yeah. Bronca is the brand of Furnette that's most popular, Furnette Bronca. That's right. It's a menthol-flavored, super bitter. It's a really, really weird drink, but it is lifeblood in Argentina. Yeah, right?

Yeah. In fact, one of the most popular cocktails in Argentina is the Fernando or Fernandito, which is I think a one to three. So two ounces of Furnette with six ounces of Coke. And that's it. Wow. It's a great hangover cure and people are nuts for it and they're so crazy for it. Argentina consumes 75% of Furnette Bronca made worldwide.

Wow. How much? 75%, three quarters of the Furnette Bronca made in the entire world is drunk in Argentina. Wow. Because they love that drink so much. All right. If I ever go to Argentina, I'll try it out. I think I want to try that.

I mean, it sounds like something way more than just the Furnette. Like they combine together to make something really special. So I would try that. But if I never have like a sip of Furnette Bronca again, I won't be, it'll be too soon. Well there is a cola-esque element to some Amarros, so I can't wait till we start getting all the emails. They're like, you guys said you never say Amarros, you used to say Amari and then you proceeded to say Amarros like 10 times.

Did I just say Amarros? Yeah, we both have. Oh boy. That's right. So what about the Artichoke win? I saw it pronounced Chinar. Chinar. Or Chinar.

That is the one that you've probably noticed the bottle because it has an Artichoke on the front of it. Right. And you might be thinking, well, that's a weird thing to have on the front of a liquor bottle. But that's what it's made from. It's from Venice, created in the 1950s. So it's a, I guess as far as Amari ago, it's a newer Amari or Amaro, see, there I go.

And that is, Artichoke is a Mediterranean thistle and I have not tried this, but I'm eager to. It's fine. It doesn't taste like Artichoke at all, but I find the label off-putting. Oh, you don't like that Artichoke looking at you? No, I really don't. Again, it doesn't taste anything like Artichoke, but you know, to make Artichoke the mascot of your Amaro, clearly they're doing fine because Chinar is another really popular one

in the U.S., but I just, I'm not crazy for it because of that stupid Artichoke on the label. I think it looks cool. I think it looks like a 70s something or other. Definitely. But it's still an Artichoke and you're drinking an Artichoke is what it seems like. On the lighter side, we did mention Montenegro, but there's another one I wanted to shout out that's very popular called Nonino.

You'll see in a lot of shelves. And if you've ever had a paper plane, you've probably had Nonino in it. Yeah. The paper plane is Nonino, Aperol, Bourbon, and lemon juice, I think equal parts. Oh, Aperol as well, interesting. Yeah, or Redbitter, but yeah, Aperol. Okay. They double up on it.

They definitely do. But I mean, that just goes to show how different Amaro or Amari is because you can put two Amari in a drink and it's not like just two of the same thing, you know? How about this? I love the description of the Elisir Nova Salus. That's the Alpine Amaro, I think very piney. And Dave dug up this great quote from a writer named Chuck Taggart, a cocktail writer that said a sip of Elisir Nova Salus tastes like you're getting kicked in the crotch by a tree.

Yeah. I love descriptors like that that are weird, but totally nail it. Yeah. It's supposed to be so bitter. It's just crazy, which is all the more surprising that it's a vino Amaro. So its base is wine. But like you said, it's Alpine. And in the Alpine class of Amaro, it definitely has like a piney tree kind of thing going

on, woodsy. And my favorite is one called Zerben stone pine liqueur. And if you look at descriptions, so go on to, if this is like floating your boat, I'll go into housealpens and just start following links and you'll end up in the coolest rabbit hole ever. But they are one of the suppliers of Zerbenz, maybe the only one. And in other descriptions of Amari, they'll say like enjoy it on its own or with just a little citrus twist or whatever.

And then they'll go into all the other things you can use that Amaro for. It's Zerbenz, they say basically like you should mix this with other stuff. You don't really want to drink it on its own. Because it's so piney, they literally make it from pine cones. That's how piney it is, but it's really good. It's really weird. It's its own thing. It's like, it's just its own thing.

I strongly recommend just trying it at least once. Interesting. All right. I got nothing else, is it where there any other Amaris we need to go over? The time was purposeful, wasn't it? I don't think so. We should give a shout out to American Amari that's starting to kind of make a thing. I know Leopold's has one and I think St. George has one and there's a bunch of other ones

too. Yeah. I mean, I love it. There's all kinds of creative things happening in the United States in terms of distilling things. So, of course they're on board with Amaro. So what's your next bottle? Well, I guess I got to get a bottle of Montenegro.

Okay. Yeah. Just buy that, but then also what's your other next bottle? Like you're going to want not just that one because you'll taste it and be like, oh, this is good. I've already kind of passed this point. Well, I think the piney one you were just talking about. The Xerbenz?

Yeah. Okay. And then what's your third one? You might actually want another one too because you might be frustrated with those two if those are your two next ones. Well, you tell me that. I feel like you're leading me to a choice. I'm not.

I'm honestly not. Well, those are the two and then I should try for Nat. Okay. You're about to have like a losing streak of Amaro. Oh, no, that will negate my winning streak. You'll come out the other end though. All right. Okay.

Well, since Chuck said all right, everybody, that means it's time for Listener Man. I'm going to call this Honey PSA, which was pretty interesting. This is from Taylor Haddon. He said, Hey, guys, toward the end of the episode on Honey, you listed off all the amazing properties. I don't know if this came up in your research, but for people with fructose intolerance like my husband, it also has the major property of being anti not in the bathroom. Oh, wow.

Or I guess that would be pro not in the bathroom, not to think about it. So few people know that you can be intolerant to fructose anyway, just like so many of us are intolerant to lactose and Honey is one of the worst substances that he can eat along with agave syrup. It's even worse than high fructose corn syrup and fruits that are high in fructose like apples and tomatoes. It took him such a long time to figure out what was causing stomach troubles because so few people know that they can be affected like this.

And fun fact, because fructose pairs with dextrose to make glucose, a person who is fructose intolerant can take dextrose to negate some of the consequences, just like a person with lactose intolerance can take lactate. Wow. And get this. It gets even better. This is a great email. Conveniently, Smarties Candy is 100% dextrose, so my husband has stashes of them everywhere.

It's always a funny moment when we're eating pizza with new people and they wonder why he's snacking on Smarties as an appetizer. Crazy. That is great. Thanks for the show. It's seriously wonderful. You bring joy and excitement to so many topics and your well research style gives me inspiration when teaching my ninth grade English students how to find sources.

And that is a teacher, Taylor Haddon, and hello to your ninth grade English class. Yeah. Hello, Ms. Haddon's ninth grade class, right? Yeah. And you're a hubs. Yeah. And Chuck, we should also say a few people wrote in and were like, guys, you probably should have also mentioned that you shouldn't feed honey to a baby under one year of age.

Yeah. And which I think we talked about in some other episode before, but yes, it bears repeating because their little immune systems are so fragile and botulin can be found in honey, but they can suffer botulism, which you do not want a baby to have. Yeah. I think we added that it was in the episode, hey, don't feed that baby that thing. Right. That was a great, great episode.

We're like, and what about this thing? Oh yeah, don't feed a baby that. Don't do it. Well, thanks a lot, Taylor. And if you want to be like Taylor, you can get in touch with us via email at StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

you listen to your favorite shows. What's up y'all? This is Questlove. You know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends, Sugar Steve, Laia, Vontigolo, Unpaid Bill, and we, you know, at Questlove Supreme, like the nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors, politicians, creatives, people that we feel really deserve that attention. We learn, we laugh, we fall down rabbit holes. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons

have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. MySpace was the first major social media company. They made the internet feel like a nightclub. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. My name is Joanne McNeil. On my new podcast, Main Accounts, the story of MySpace, I'm revisiting the early days of

social media through the people who lived it. Listen to Main Accounts, the story of MySpace. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows.