Meet Amaro: It Wants to Be in Your Cocktail

Molly and Brandon introduce us to the Safe Passage: the perfect way to start drinking amari.

ByMollyandBrandon

Published OnSeptember 5, 2013

You'll no longer have to buy a plane ticket to get in on the cocktails at Seattle's Essex: Owners Brandon Pettit and Molly Wizenberg (a.k.a. Orangette) will be sharing their favorite recipes with us, every other week. Drink up, people.

Today: Molly and Brandon introduce us to the Safe Passage, or, the perfect way to start drinking amari.

Before we opened Delancey, we studied up, eating pizza from New York to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, and many points in between. Of the dozens of pies we tasted, one of the most memorable was the clam pizza with chiles and parsley from Franny’s of Brooklyn, a restaurant that, if we could, we’d hit up once or twice a week. When Franny’s founders, Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens, published a cookbook this summer and went on tour, we leapt at the opportunity to host a celebratory dinner for them at Delancey.

Of course, it can be daunting (scary? terrifying? paralyzing?) to cook for cooks who’ve inspired you, and to smooth the way, we wanted to serve a great cocktail. We handed the Franny’s cookbook to Essex bar manager Kenaniah Bystrom and asked him to use it as a springboard, and what he came up with was a nod to Franny’s “Sweet Olive” cocktail, a combination of Meletti amaro, Aperol, olive brine, and prosecco.

Niah’s version swaps out Meletti for Amaro Nardini, a caramelly liqueur infused with bitter orange and peppermint. (Amaro Nardini is also, as it happens, Brandon’s after-dinner sip of choice: try a thimbleful after your next big meal, and you might well wind up with a new habit. In general, amari, the bitter herbal liqueurs that Italians drink after dinner, are an acquired taste, but they’re worth the effort.)

If you don’t have Nardini, you could use any amaro with prominent orange or citrus flavors: Zucca, Amaro Nonino, or, of course, Meletti. And while you could probably use any olive brine, Niah prefers the brine of Castelvetrano olives, which are particularly sweet and balance nicely with amari. He also adds a tiny kick of lemon juice for acidity, and a Castelvetrano garnish.

The result is a little salty, a little sweet, and gently, very gently, bitter. We call it “Safe Passage,” and after it ushered us through that important evening, we made it a permanent item on the summer menu.