That's Amaro!

You can get tickets right now. From Tuesday March fourteenth until Thursday, March sixteenth, we have a pre sale going just use the password sysk live, and then we have general on sale tickets starting on Friday, March seventeenth at ten am Eastern time. Go to Ticketmaster for your DC tickets, go to the Chevalier Theater website for Boston, and then go to ticketmaster dot CA for the Massey Hall show in Toronto. We'll see you guys, May fourth, fifth, and sixth,

and I can't tell you how excited we are. Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 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 the 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 tomorrow, but it can be anything. Just something will happen, or there will be a brand or something in the house, and I'll sometimes it's uh, sounds like something else in a song, and so I'll just kind of do like a weird al version of that. So make it up. Are they like ballads? Like in your A Marrow songs?

A Marrow falling in love and then jilted and then you know, no, no, no, no, this is a riff. I'll go ahead and sing it if you'd like. Yeah. This one was because Dave Ruse helped us with this one. And when Dave sent this in, he said, you know, Dave's I know much of a drinker, so he said, but he tried tomorrow for this, and he said it tasted like robot us and 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 little sip and said it. You know, I had that. And of course amorrow 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 robata son, that's a Morrow. 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 you me could move in, and you'd be like, this guy's got a quit singing. We quickly move back out. I'm having a Morrow right now. Actually, oh yeah, I don't have any tomorrow, and I would like some. I don't I haven't decided which kind yet. I'm just gonna 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 ounces. 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 that's nothing. Yeah, what kind? Uh? This is milletti 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 amorrow, we'll prepare to learn, because we're going to teach you what tomorrow is. And to put it in

very basic terms, it is a bitter suite. Oh. Some people would to say just bitter liqueur, which means a liqueur is any kind of alcohol that is sweetened with sugar, and so amorrow is a specific kind of liqueur, a bitter liqueur, that's right. And it is a digestif. It is largely Italian, although there are plenty of countries who make there are amorrows. And I never really thought of Jagermeister as an amorrow, but apparently it's it's considered a

German amorrow, yeah, an herbal amorrow. Yeah, but it's generally Italian. The history is Italian and there. If you go to the Amarrow section, you're going to see a lot of Italian words. Yeah, and you're gonna be busting out your Italian x and quite a bit in this episode. I think here and there, I don't want to overdo it. So Amorrow has been around. It's been a big hit in Italy and Europe France since the nineteenth century at least,

possibly back into the eighteenth century in some places. But in America wasn't until like the cocktail renaissance of the tens. I guess yeah, that amorrow really kind of found its place, and I mean it's been here for a while. Kampari is a type of Amorrow called a bitter red and it's I mean, everybody knows what Kampari is, and maybe slightly fewer people know what Apperall is. But both of

those are technically amorrow. But when you get into the world of amorrow, you realize, like, oh, there's like a whole galaxy out there. But the one thing that they have in common is there they have an alcohol base, a lot of bitter bittering 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 a morrow. Like I think every single kind of amorrow, even ones in the same group, are are just different. They're not the same thing. Yeah, and there are hundreds of amari and amari it's the plural. You wouldn't say different amorrows. If you want to get it right, you say amari. And there are hundreds of amar all over Italy. And like you said, they they're

all proprietary, proprietarily blended. And what you'll usually see because you know, they still want to sell their stuff and market some of the taste. Yeah, so if you look up how they taste, they'll usually include like a handful of the botanicals and then say, and you know, and the rest are you know, only for us to know that kind of thing, right, we'd have to kill you, right, we can tell you, but just prepare to die. That's right. I don't know if it's right, but sure. Um So,

to make a marrow is actually very easy. You just take like a base alcohol usually between fourteen and I've seen as much as like forty forty five percent proof or forty five proof, I should say no percent that's right. Proof is double the percentage, right, eighty to nine proof, okay. And then you just soak some some bittering agents and herbs, whatever your proprietary blend is. You let it soak for

a little while. Sometimes you might redistill it with the 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 mass rating or infusing, when you just basically say here, gentiin 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 amorrow. Yeah, And that base alcohol can vary. A lot of times. It will be grappa, which is great brandy, but not always see Dave putting 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 amorrow is or amari is grappa, yes, or wine. Well, but what they don't do is like that kind of stuff isn't on the label because it doesn't really matter,

like it. But when you get something like this, the bottle won't say, you know, with a base alcohol of like 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. Um they you know, espresso is very bitter, ridicio a arugula there. They've always sort of been on the leading edge of bitter things. Yeah. I saw chok 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. Does did you already say that amorrow meant to bitter an Italian? I don't think we did. Actually, Yeah, so there's the giveaway right there. And bitter is something I'm not sure if we even if I was even on too 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 elder years. Right, But things like espresso and like I don't sweeten um any like coffees or I used to like sweeten lattes and things like that. But I love espresso now, and I love arugula and ridicio, and I love amorrow and so bitter or something I've really kind of grown grown,

It's grown on me. I guess, yeah, I mean same here, especially as I've aged. I've always despised bitter stuff. Yeah. Now I can sometimes choke down a bite of grapefruit even. 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 squeeze orange juice about one to one ratio.

That's a really good jam um. But just eating the grapefruit is a completely different experience than drinking the juice, and it's really for me. Yeah, all right, I'll go to try that. I can only think of my mom, who you know, seventies mom that half a grape fruit on the kitchen table in the morning, and the little uh was that weird little sort of two sided knife thing that would carve out the sections? Did the grapefruit spoon? Well, it's not. 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. 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 well, 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, you know, loop around the slice or whatever. So I've

seen spoons with that same serrated edge that are grapefruit spoons. Okay, I have to check that out. Seen the knife, though, I wonder what the grape root 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. So you have gentin, 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. Um. And it shows up all over the place, um, everything from kapari to some of the more like um arcane, hardcore m amari. UM. 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. A lot of people do, but you can kind of mix it up for your own proprietary blend. There's no rules. There are rules, and we'll get into

him late. Well, that's true wormwood, which we talked about in the Absent episode where we also mentioned the gypsums milord the 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. H. And it is I'm not sure if we mentioned this in the Absence, but it is an herb, a small leaved herb. Yeah. It's kind of all over Europe, yeah for sure. UM. And then you've got Chinchona. I think it's Sinchona. Sinchona, Yeah,

I looked it up. We I think we said Cinchona a lot in the Gin and Tonic episode and we were wrong. Okay, So sinchona, which is I mean how it spelled, but it comes from It's a it's a tree. It's a bark of a tree in South America. It's where you get quinine, which they used to treat malaria and is what gives tonic water. It's very bitter taste. Yeah, so a lot of a lot of Amari use sinchona in it. And um, you'll see on a label something that says China, but it's actually I think, actually I

think it's pronounced kinda kina. Oh really, yeah, because the cch It took Italian in college and the sound is right, yeah, just to see I would be the sound. Wait you took Italian? Yeah, I took Italian. Why aren't you doing the voice? I never got it down years is way better than mine. I could converse in it. I just couldn't offend them. He sounded like a guy by Italian by way of Toledo pretty much pretty much. I 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. It 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 one hundred and ten 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. Yeah, I couldn't believe it and I couldn't get it back. So I did terrible on the final. I did all 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, 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 chat GPT, you know. I just now remember that memory, and I don't remember what the rub was or why Fraul 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. Well, no,

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 you like your Shakespeare teacher. Yeah, I should get advance on it, right. Uh. But they didn't mess around, you know, English professor, don't go over to the foreign language departments. That's just not

something you do, I guess not. Um, So let's talk about some of these um 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 digestif, but I guess what is it appertif as well? Uh? Yeah, you know, like not all a mari are digestifs. They're

appertifs as well, or you can use them both. It just depends on what side of a meal you drink it on, really, but they're they're supposed to be the same thing, like they're 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. Uh, Chuck, do you mind speaking of singing? Oh? 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 camomeal core under coal, nut, megan, liquorice, marjorom, cloves, cinnamon and fennel keynoto in Italian orange variety, rhubarb, angelica, muran, cardamom, carmea green stara niece and sasaparilla not only the flavor of root beer, but a traditional treatment for syphilist mint rust and yopa and holly and evergreen shrub native to the American Southwest. Wow, I wish you could have done

that as megal. I think the microphone would have exploded. Inecstasy, the stuff you should know would have 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 um like you, I mean, you said you can get one that packs a punch, it's like a full you know, eighty proof or so. But amarro

is generally known as a slightly lighter weight liqueur. 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 tame down from like a big liquor drink. Yeah, definitely, I mean it's the point isn't to get hammered off of a Morrow? Now? I mean you can and if you want to, but that's

certainly not the point of it. Well, I've learned recently that too much amorrow in one sitting is like there's a digestif quality and then there's a digestive quality, you know what I'm saying. Sure, I know what you mean. Yeah, So, like what do you want? That's not the point you want to attain? No? One or two is great? Sure? 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 fifty percent 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, you're only supposed to use a few drops a dash or two of cocktail bitters, whereas with an Amorrow you actually drink like an ounce or two, like it's a drink. It's not something you add to a drink. But they're so close that the people differentiate cocktail bitters and a Mari by by calling a mari 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 lightning, or like one fifty one proof from Yeah, how do they get away with selling that in grocery stores? Or do they because you you drink so little of it? I mean, even 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 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 nineteen forties alcoholics that like, hey, the mouthwash has booze in it and there's nothing else in the house. That kind of thing. Yeah, but Obey 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. They know that I think about it. They do, okay, because I know people like in Los Angeles you can you can buy you know, their liquor. There's liquor in grocery stores, right, there's liquor in their drug stores. It's so bizarre. It is very strange. It's super convenient, though it is very COMMUNI but in grocery stores you can buy angostura usually, which is like, I mean, that's the the universal bitter. Yeah, which is great. I

love it. Vermouth, now, this is where I'm gonna lean on you a little bit. But Vermouth and Tomorrow do have a lot in common, and it is also an alcohol. It is also infused with bitters and botanicals and It is also a bitter sweet and used as a bitter sweetening agent in cocktails. 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 ver vermouth right with a W. Right. Does that makes sense? No,

it totally makes sense. And vermouth it bears a striking resemblance to tomorrow because, like we said earlier, some some amarium have wine as their base, not groppa or another spirit. So I mean the distinction between a vermouth and a vno Amorrow 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, yea fortified with booze, meaning sherry vermou port. And then there's a whole bunch of other like specific wines like Bonal 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 veno Amorrow with an extra bit of booze. It's that extra booze and vermouth that is the only thing that differentiates it from some kinds of Amorrow, Right, And vermouth always has to have the wine component, and amorrow

doesn't necessarily have to. Right. No, that's right. I'm gonna recommend, and I hope people that are into this kind of thing have their pencil and pad out to write down some of these wrecks. But for you as well, my friend, I found a very nice sweet vermouth that is made in Napa Valley, Oh yeah, called the Massi and it is really tasty. I will check that out. I'm a Carpano antiqua um person myself. Yeah, I mean those are classics, but this is a nice, small batch, made in America

kind of thing. I will definitely try it. I will, I will try, especially if they mail it to us for free. We should try a break hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's like twenty minutes in. We got so excited. Wait, what are you drinking. I'm drinking lemon water, okay, spiked with moonshine. All right, we'll be right back everyone. You know, I was going to make the joke that I'm a method podcaster but having this tomorrow, and then I remember that that was the very one of the very first

things I said on the show. You did you do you remember that? Yeah, of course I remember. I think that was your first 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. Uh, yeah, you're a

method podcaster for sure. Should we talk about the pretty interesting history of Tomorrow, Yeah, because a trek pretty closely the history of spirits and booze as in general essentially. Yeah, and shout out because Dave used this book for a lot of this research from a mixologist from Italy named mateo Z called the Big Book of Amorrow. No colon, that's it. It's awesome. I love that 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 cold thing again. You sounded like Italian by way of the brons. That's what I'm saying. I don't do it very well. That's why you're the you're the Italian accent. Guy thought about to say the Italian stallion. I'll call you that too, especially if you sing around me more. All right, So if you want to talk about um basically distillation as a whole, you need to go back to Arab alchemists in the seventh and eighth centuries, which is who learned how to do

this stuff. And pretty soon after they learn how to get ethanol going, they said, you know what, we'll just start infusing it and drinking it. Because infusing things is you know, 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 amorrow early on, it was a way to actually preserve the botanicals and the herbs. It makes them last longer. Right. They all also figured out that they could 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're 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 ju lip or jew lab, 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 sugared and it sounds a lot like kreme to violette, which is a great kreme 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 aviation gin and creme to violet and I think a little Maraschino liqueur, and it is beautiful, but it's this gorgeous violet light purple color. It's 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 krem liqueur, not a cream liquor. Kreme liquor.

And I found out from this research that they call it krem because these types of liqueurs have so much sugar in it that it gives it almost a creamy texture. Oh interesting, Yeah, but a cream liqueur would actually have some sort of cream to it. This is a krem liqueur, so creme to vilet, krem to men. 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 you did you think there was a dairy agent to those things. I didn't because it's clearly not there, you know. But I thought maybe they like creamed the violets or something like it was part of the process. Yeah, yeah, kind of what I thought. Now my eyes are wide open. I said, just go milk that flour and bring me some cramp from it. So, these the things that these Arab alchemists were doing eventually, of course, found their way

to Italy. And this is like twelfth thirteenth 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 a hold of it, and then the year thirteen hundred, a very sort of lucky, unlucky thing happened at the same time, which is Pope Boniface the eighth 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 thirteen hundred, 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 aquavite 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 pretty good buzz too, And by the sixteenth century, I believe people were like, just just give me that. I want to drink it. I don't have anything wrong with me. I'm trying to do anything different. I 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 seventeenth century Venice and Florence had a really robust by trade going on, and of course they kind of spread that to the different monasteries that were making this booze, and so all of a sudden you had this sugary

component and more spices. And this is kind of when, like tomorrow as we know it today, feels like it was really born. Yeah, for sure. 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 liqueur, so they were just making them better

and better. And then by the nineteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth 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 nineteenth century. Yeah, and that's if you 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 nineteenth century date on the bottle, very proudly. They've been around for a long time. Kimpari, like you said, is kind of like if you're putting together a bar for the first time, you look up, like what kinds

of different things should I get? That aren't just like you know, the main liquors, kim Pari will probably be on that list. It's that 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 Gaspardi Campatti, who was from Nevada, Italy, started experimenting in the eighteen forties with the recipe didn't finalize it till close to twenty years later in eighteen sixty and opened up Cafe Kempari and Milan, and that's where the drink the Americano was born, which is very simple as campari, Italian vermouth and some soda water. Right, And in this case the

Americanos not named after US Americans. A mayor is the French word for bitter, so this is a play on that Americano is a bitter drink. And you mentioned how bright red kampari is actually comes from carmine the big red goo, 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 increases red powder that's been used as a dye for centuries. Yeah, and they did that all the way

until two thousand and six, which is really surprising. Now it's synthesized, but I believe you know there are some sort of small batch of mai that are made around the world that still used this method of crushing the bugs. Definitely there's one. So that whole thing, remember apperall kampari they're called red bitters. That's their classification. There's a whole bunch of red bitters out there, and one of them, Cappelletti, um 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 um, it's less sweet than campari, so it has like a more balanced finish. And I don't think I've ever read many more words that made me want to try a liqueur more than that. Oh, because do you usually not in like a Negroni. I love a Negroni. That's the okay I got. That's I'm into, like an improved Negroni. I mean, give it to me a Negroni. Plus I love it Negroni too. It's a

great drink. And then Negroni actually came from uh where did they come from? I don't know. It came from somebody's cafe. I want to say it came from Cafe Campari. Yeah, but there was a count whose name was Negroni and I can't 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 COMPARI can't Camillo Negroni in nineteenth twenty. He was a customer there at Cafe Campari said I like this Americano. Yeah, pretty good. Can you give me

something different? And the bartender swapped out the soda water with gin, and the first Negroni was made, and Count Camillo Negroni was canonized the very next day. Oh that's an interesting trade. I'll swap out the soda water for gin. Right, this soda water is a waste of space. There's Amorrow averna. It's a very popular Morrow. It's much sweeter. This is from eighteen sixty eight, 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 like 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 go with God if you want to. I'm just gonna be sitting over here in the shade. What about Montenegro, that's your jam? Right? Yeah, I love it. It was originally

called Elica lunga vita, the Elixir of Life. It's made with forty botanicals which is a middling amount of botanicals. Typically for a Merrow, it's like right there in the middle, which is appropriate because a Mero Montenegro is like a really good introduction to like real amari. But it came from Bologna, Italy back in eighteen eighty five, created by a guy named Stana Solokobianki, and he was so enthralled with Princess Elena of Montenegro, who became Queen of Italy

nineteen hundred, that he renamed his Amari Amarrow Montenegro. I love that story, and that is um. I saw a couple of great there at least two really good YouTube videos from from Amarrow enthusiasts, and they 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 nine ten eleven minutes each and they do a really good job of sort of you know, if you've never tried amar, then here like ten different kinds that range from what the guy referred to as sort of like pastry esque all the way to super medicinal tasting, right. And the one they had in the middle is when I have on myself called the Lucano, but they both described Montenegro as a really good gateway omarrow for someone who's never really tried it, which makes

me think, I still don't have a bottle. I'm going to get one soon. But oh yeah, that's that has an accessibility factor to it definitely, and it's really useful in cocktails too because it's it's very sweet as far

as amari go, it's a pretty sweet Tomorrow. And like Montenegro, like many others, got a golden rich golden color, some of the caramel color, some are brownish, and a lot of them really kind of sharing common like they have a brown taste, like you could taste it and if if 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 a Morrow

that's been around. It might be the oldest surviving continuously made a Morrow recipe and it comes from France chartrouss oh, which there's another thing you've seen on American bars for decades and decades, huge firm bar thing, but chartreuse vert in particular is green. Yeah, and it's been It was first brewed in like the seventeen thirties, but it came from a recipe in sixteen oh five. And again it's

monks in a monastery making these recipes. And still to the state check, 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 amazing, And there's one hundred and thirty two botanicals in chartreuse. That is really something. And then here's the fact of the podcast

for me. The color Chartrusse got its name from the liqueur chartrouss, not the other way around. It's older than the color, isn't that neat? Yeah? That's pretty cool. Yeah. So that chartrous blouse you're wearing, it's named after Chartrousse. Vert the amorrow. All right, let's take a break. I've spilt some momorrow on my blouse and I need to go put the hair dryer on it, and we'll be right back, 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 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 amorrow right and really enjoy the taste of it, but you'll you'll be aiding in digestion. True

or false? Chuck, Yeah, I mean kind of true. I don't know there's 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 tomorrow 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 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 all or anything, but I believe it's a legit digestive. Plus also, um, a lot of those herbs are like hepato protective, 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 systems are concerned. But on the other hand, there is a lot of criticism of drinking some amorrow after a meal, especially a big meal, because alcohol actually slows digestion should by as much as fifty, right, So it's actually slowing now your digestion, making you feel fuller longer. Plus it's extra calories that you have to

now 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 and net is it does nothing.

I don't know, it might I think I get the impression that appertifs do more to stimulate appetite and get your juices going literally and a digestive, and that what I saw was that you're much better off just spritzing some 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, it will spray bitters in her mouth and stuff, Yeah, occasionally, and that's

that's probably the way to do it. Yeah, before the meal. Yeah, But like I said, you're not even if you're drinking AMR the right way, you're not drinking a ton of it. So like in tomorrow 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 digestive, what you're really doing is just finishing this meal in a really like luxurious calm way. Yes,

that's really the point of it. Yeah, So I promise my Amorrow 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 Negrons and things, but not on its own, and it wasn't something I really kept in stock until about two wish years ago. I follow the actor Walton Goggins on Instagram and he makes his own Looker. He makes mulhalland whiskey and gin, which are both great. Really love the whiskey, and I'm a huge

fan of his. And he made a cocktail of just half Bourbon and half Amorrow to Angus Stora. Angus Stora makes their own like full size of Tomorrow. Same company makes the bitters and a little like orange peel. I think, express those oils in there and rub it around the rim,

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 ormorrow 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 an 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. Wow. And he's the kind of guy that just really loves to He's very generous and loves to share knowledge and turn people onto things. So he brought me a four O F O R O which is sort of it's very much sweeter, has like a coffee taste to it. Yeah, there's definitely coffee Amari. Yeah, that's one of him. He brought me Miletti, 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 Saint Paul girl in the Baha. You've probably seen it before. Yeah, I've seen like old vintage posters of Lucano stuff I've never Yeah, and Lucanor's super bitter. Um, I don't think I've never had any of the Frenetts. That's next on my list. As you're you're not going to like them really because I'm into the bitter. Is it's it's not bitter, it's not good bitter. It's a whole it's a whole other class of things. It's not pleasant.

I don't understand people who like Frenette. Is it like the Malort thing a little bit but mentally oh interesting. I mean it is interesting and people do like it, but I I mean, I'll be surprised if you're a Fernette guy. Okay, you know, let me know for sure, but I'll be surprised. I think it. Bronca is the most popular. Yeah, let's talk about this. So Fernett is at the end of your story because it was a good story by some Amari. Yeah, big thanks to Toma

and also to make friends with Thomas. But um, yeah, Fernet is it's um class called a Bronca or no, it's called a Fernet. Yeah. Bronca is the brand of Fernett. That's the most popular fern at Bronco. That's right. And it is mental flavored, uh, super bitter. It's a really really weird drink, but it is life blood in Argentina. Yeah right. Yeah. In fact, one of the most popular cocktails in Argentina. Argentina is a Fernando or Fernandidom, which is I think a one to three so two ounces

of net with six ounces of coke and that's it. Wow. And it's a great hangover cure and people are nuts for it, and um, they're so crazy for it. Argentina consumes seventy five percent of Furnet Bronco made worldwide. Wow, how much seventy five percent? Three quarters of the fur Net Bronco made in the entire world. It's 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 fur net, like they combine together to make something really special. So I would try that. But if I never have like a sip of fur net bronco again, I won't be it. It'll be too soon. Well, there is a Cola esque element to some Amorrows, so I can't I can't wait till we start getting all the emails there. Like you guys said, you you never say a Morrow was used to say a Mari and then you proceed to say

Amorrow's like ten times. Did I just say, yeah, we both have that's right. What about the artichoke? When I saw it pronounced China chinaar chinnar. That is the one that you've probably noticed the bottle because it has an artichoke on the front of it, 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 nineteen fifties, so it's a I guess as far as amri ego, it's a newer Amar or Amar 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 pudding. Oh you don't like that artichoke looking at you? No, I really don't. Again, it doesn't taste anything like artichoke.

But right, you know, to make artichok the mascot of your amorrow. Clearly they're doing fine because Chinnar is another really popular one in the US, but I just I'm not crazy for it because of that stupid artichoke on the lab. Well, I think it looks cool. I think it looks like a seventies something or other, definitely, But it's still an artichoke and you're drinking an art of choke, 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 no Nino. You'll see in a lot of shelves, and if you've ever had a paper plane, you've probably had no Nino in it. Yeah, a paper plane is no Nino. Apper all bourbon and lemon juice. I think equal parts Oh apper all is well interesting, yeah, or red bitter but yeah apperl okay, they double up on it. They definitely do. But but I mean that just goes to show how different amorrow or a mari 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 a liser Nova Salis. It's the alpine amorrow, I think very piney. And Dave dug up the great quote from a writer named Chuck Taggart, a cocktail writer, that set a sip of alser Nova Salis tastes like you're getting kicked in the crutch 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 Amorrow, so it's vers is wine. But like you said, it's alpine and the alpine class of amorrow is. It definitely has like a piney tree kind of thing going on woods And my favorite is one called zerbin Stone pine Liqueur. Okay, And if you if you look at descriptions, So go onto. If this is like floating your boat at all, going to house alpens alpe nz dot com and just start following links and you'll end

up in the coolest rabbit hole ever. But they are one of them suppliers of zerbins be the only one and the other descriptions of Amari. They'll say, like, enjoy it on its own, or with it just a little citrus twist or whatever, and then they'll go into all the other things you can use that tomorrow for With their benz they say basically like you should mix this with other stuff. You don't really one and drinking on its own because it's so piny. They literally make it

from pine cones. That's how piny 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 where they're any other Amari's we need to go over That 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 Leopolds has one, and yeah, I think Saint

George has one. There's a bunch of other ones too. Yeah, I mean I love it. There's all kinds of creating of things happening in the United States with in terms of distilling things. So of course they're on board with amorrow. So what's your next bottle? Well, I guess I gotta get a bottle of Montenegro. Okay, yeah I did buy that, But then also, what's your other next bottle? Like you, you're gonna want not just that one because you'll taste you and be like, oh this is good. I've already

kind of passed this point. Well, I think the Piney when you were just talking about does their bins. Yeah, okay, and then you might actually want another one too. You might 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. Oh well, those are the two, and then I should try for neat. Okay, you're about to have like a losing streak of Amorrow. 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, ma'am. I'm gonna call this honey PSA, which was pretty interesting, and this is from Taylor Hadden. They 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, or I guess that would be pro not in the bathroom now they think about it. So few people know that you can be intolerant to fructose anyway, just like so many of a certain intolerance to lactose, and honey is one of the worst substances that he

can eat, along with a gabby syrup. It's even worse than high fructose corn syrup and fruits that are high in fructose like apples and tomatoes. Took him such a long time to figure out what was causing his stomach troubles because a few people know that they can be effective like this, and fun fact, because fructose pears with dextrose to make glucose. A person who is fructose intolerant can take dex stros to negate some of the consequences,

just like a person with lactose intolerance can take lactid. Wow, and get this, it gets even better. There's a great email. Conveniently, Smarties candy is one hundred percent dextros, so my husband has stashes of them everywhere, and 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 as seriously wonderful.

You bring joy and excitement 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 Miss Haddon's ninth grade class, right, yeah,

and your hubs Yeah, and Chuck. We should also say a few people rode in or like you probably should have also mentioned that you shouldn't feed honey to a baby under one year of age, Yeah, 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 batulin 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 in what about this thing? Oh yeah, I feed a baby. They would 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 stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.