How to Cocktail: Amaro Cocktails

0:06 On today's film and whiskey will be exploring the world of the Amaro cocktail. First by trying the Americano from Fast Penny spirits and then moving over to try extra dry, vermouth from via vermouth that's all ahead on the film and whiskey podcast. Hey everybody. Welcome into the film and whiskey podcast. I'm Bob book, I'm Reggie. And today, we're coming at you with another special bonus. Episode in bonus, episode Brad.

0:54 We're bringing back an old favorite today. Our how-to cocktail series, which we have now visited in a while. I forgot what a cocktail was, listen. It was a perfect series to do, while we were all on lockdown during covid because, you know, you could just order a really Dirt Cheap bartending kit from Amazon. You can hit the liquor store if you, if, you know the spirit. So moved you and you could mix up some cocktails at home, I gotta say, man over the last couple years, I've learned a lot more about G listening back to those first few episodes. We were like, yeah, just put this thing in a Shaker and shake it up and then I find out, you know, actually you were supposed to stir that drink. Not shake it. It's like, okay.

1:34 I thought you took everything. You know. Yeah. I'll drinks are shaken, not stirred. Come on. Let's go from James Bond. So, you know, we're going to try to give you know, a bit more refined a bit more accurate information, this time around. But what we're doing today is we're going to be drinking for different cocktails brat. That is, that's a A lot of cocktails. No. No you go big or go home on the film and whiskey podcast. That is correct. What we're going to do today is move into the world of a morrow, or a Mari as they're called in their plural form. Because they are from the Italian Heritage. I'm Ari is basically a catch-all term for a number of bitter herbal Liquors and they're made kind of similarly to what, you know, what we call bitters but they're more of a liquor.

2:20 They're not quite as concentrated they're made. Mixing or sometimes sipping neat on their own in a way that you wouldn't do with like a glass full of bitters but very similar in that they're made from steeping. Botanicals in some sort of spirit or sometimes wine you have like just a huge array of a Mari and like ranging from really really dark super bitter. Super potent to really really light and color and usually made from mixing with light, alcohols, like gin. I know some people really like one that from France, that's called Sue. Zoos that mixes really well with gin. I'm sure you've heard of an Amaro before whether it's nonino or Montenegro or Campari or a parole or there's one called shinar, which has a big artichoke on the front of it because it's made from and tastes like artichoke.

3:09 So like sounds just amazing up. It's perfect. In my spinach dip cocktail. You know what this is whiskey sour could really use in it and artichoke spinach and artichoke dip. Today, we are not making a spinach and artichoke cocktail, but we will be making cocktails, featuring different kinds of Amari. And there are some really great ones being made in the United States. And in particular, we're going to be featuring one from Fast Penny Spirits, which is called Americano, because it's amazing because it's, you know, it you could use it to make the Americano drink. It's also made in America, it's also an Amaro. So it is like a fantastic pun of a name and I really, really love it. Brad But this stuff was sent to us like over a year ago now and we're just finally getting around to it. So I want to say thank you to fast penny for waiting so long to get your episode to air.

4:03 I promise, I enjoyed the hell out of your product and these for cocktails. Yeah, I was going to say at this point, I have used it all up making cocktails for my friends because it's absolutely delicious. It's really, really good, fast Penny. You guys are just killing it out there on the west coast. So the first cocktail we're going to make today will walk you through the Build of this cocktail, it's called the black Manhattan. Now we've made a Manhattan on here before you're probably familiar, it's generally made with rye whiskey and then you use sweet vermouth, we're not doing that today. You swap out the sweet vermouth for a dark Amaro. Usually it's something like a Verna but we don't have a Verna today. We have a Marcado. So if you'd like to build the black Manhattan Brad walk us through the build here.

4:48 Yeah, you're going to grab your bartending kit. You're going to mix in 2 ounces. Is of your preferably rye whiskey. You can use bourbon if you want to. You throw an ounce of Amaro in there, a dark Amaro preferably and then you'll do a dash of angostura Bitters and if you really want to get fancy, you can throw a dash of orange bitters in their top it off with a looks are do cherry and boom, you are set. Now this is a drink that you would use a mixing glass for to stir with. Now, you know again I know the lot of people don't have a dedicated In glass unless you've invested in a pretty high-end bartending kit. But the reason I have found out from mixologists, why some drinks are stirred in some drinks are shaken, preferably comes down to how diluted you want it to be.

5:34 Obviously, when you're shaking at, in full of ice, you are like enhancing how much water gets introduced into that and it's diluting it further and further down. Whereas with stirring at you can kind of control it a little better. Also I've learned Brad that you shake generally cocktails that have three things in them. If it has dairy in it you shake it. It if it has lemon or any kind of citrus in it, you shake it. Yeah and if it has egg in it you shake it, you know. And that makes a lot of sense, you want to incorporate those things. A lot more vigorously than you would just by stirring it. But that also means on the, you know, on the flip side, if you don't have those three ingredients in it generally, they want you to stir it. And that's what we're doing with the black Manhattan. Hear you stir it. Until it gets ice cold, you serve it up which means no ice in a chilled Coupe glass and Brad, I gotta say man, I loved me.

6:23 The black Manhattan, it had like a, you know, it has the same kind of General feel as the sweet vermouth but just a little bit darker and it went so well with my cocktail cherries that it was like a little bit nuttier man. I just it's like if you like a Manhattan and you want to make it just a little touch more, Smoky a touch more of like a date or Plum flavor. Go a little bit darker with it. This is the way to go, man. Yeah, I think that the black Manhattan is a really nice. Twist on the traditional Manhattan. I think for me the the Amaro just isn't quite the flavor I'm looking for on a Manhattan. I really still appreciate that. Classic sweet vermouth.

7:07 So while I would say that this is a really nice mixed drink. Me personally, I think I'm going to stick with the regular Manhattan. Bob, I've learned over the years that I am just not a sweet vermouth guy. Like, I like a lot of drinks that contain it, but I've had enough dirt cheap Vermouth and I've had enough vermouth that wasn't refrigerated to sport kind of spoil my drink that like just the the taste of vermouth now like throws me back to bad memories. And I think the, the Amaro is like just different enough that it made the Manhattan. Something I would want to reach for again. Well guys, that is our black Manhattan. But next, we are going to be making a drink that is called the witty comeback, which is probably one of the best names for cocktails I've ever heard about.

7:53 I Only like this name. This is not like a super classic cocktail. It seems like it was invented somewhat recently, compared to a lot of the ones we've done on this bonus episode series, but the witty comeback again is using rye as its base. And you're going to kind of find that a lot today. We have one drink that is an on-ride drink, but the other three are all right. I based, which I really liked making this many drinks with Rye Brad, I feel like when I'm just kind of making a drink for myself at home, I always tend to lean bourbon but it seems like Rye is Bartenders choice, just for adding that extra little bit of spice, little bit of punch that you don't get with bourbon. Yeah, I in general, Rye is becoming my favorite whiskey, I think. But it is 100% my favorite cocktail whiskey because it just constantly stands up well to whatever. I mix it with and I think that a lot of times when you're making a sweet cocktail like a whiskey sour or an old-fashioned, you know, I actually kind of prefer having a A little bit of that spicy flavor you get from a Ryan there. So yeah, I lean towards Rye when I make cocktails with whiskey. Now the witty comeback does contain Citrus. So we are going to shake this one. So if you've got your cocktail Tunes ready and one of them is filled with ice into the other one, you're going to put 2 ounces of rye, whiskey, a half ounce of your Amaro. Now in the original recipe, they do call for a Verna. Again, we're using a Marcano, it is the great thing about a Mari in general is that you can swap.

9:23 So, Many of them out. If you don't, you know, if you don't like Campari because it's a little too bitter, use a parole instead, that's why people love to drink the aperol Spritz in summer if you want to go super duper dark. You know, heck we could have pulled out the chin. Are for this. Brad, we could have tried the artichoke version of the witty comeback, but you want a half ounce of your Amaro in there. You want a half ounce of fresh lemon juice to kind of balance that out. And then we're going to do a half ounce of a simple syrup that has ginger in it. Now this was super easy to make I really like I went to the store Or I grabbed one little thing of ginger root. It cost me 99 Cents. You go home, you grate it up and you get about a teaspoon to a tablespoon full, depending on how spicy you like your Ginger.

10:04 And just in a little saucepan, you make simple syrup, quarter cup of sugar, quarter cup of water but you add that tablespoon full of grated Ginger into it. Let it steep in there for about an hour. Strain it out and you've got Ginger. Simple syrup Brad. This was a phenomenal drink like I thought I thought everything. Played so well together in this drink. You shake it up, you serve it up. Just like we did with the black Manhattan. Just the right amount of spice. Just the right amount of heat from the alcohol. I really like this a lot dude. This I'll just spoil it. This is the best drink of the four that we make, like far in a way for me. I just think that ginger as a flavor has been growing on me, a lot the last few years.

10:50 My wife was unable to do dairy for a while. I'll after we had our first child. So I was like, man, what kind of dairy-free dishes? Can I make? So, I ended up making a lot of Asian cuisine at our house. And ginger has just quickly become one of my favorite, seasonings and man. Oh man, when I saw him here, I was like, ginger in a cocktail and it Bob. It's stunningly. Delicious. Yeah, it's really really good. I will say here, this is like this is the kind of the cool thing about making these cocktails and also I you want to get more ingredients than you think just to make one, right? You need to have extras for playing around with because I think that the ride that I've been using for mixing lately, it just doesn't quite stand up in a cocktail, the way that it should. So I used a higher proof rye as a second pass on some of these and it made a world of difference. You also want to make sure that you've got the right amount of ginger in your Ginger.

11:46 Simple syrup because for me again, like I was really antsy and I kind of pulled the syrup too quickly before the ginger had really steeped in. Air, and it was just kind of like slightly touched with ginger, but there wasn't enough spice to it. Essence of Ginger. Yeah, it was, it was, did you injure? But again, like, find what works for you. Some people don't like a ton of kick from their alcohol. I like the ride to be really present in my ride based cocktails it. So I had to use a different one, but once you find the formula that works for you stick with that. Yeah, and I really cannot recommend highly enough. A witty comeback, like the, the ginger simple syrup I think is the scariest part of making it because it is a little bit of a step of Faith, man.

12:33 Oh man, I will tell you, it is a rewarding experience. So it Riley was like, that guy's. It seems like a step of Faith, but it's not really, because it's just like, hey, can you melt sugar into water? And then, can you plop a spoonful of this stuff in there and just forget about it for an hour? Well, then you two can make ginger simple syrup. Syrup like it's yeah it's really easy. Some of this stuff sounds super labor-intensive to make but it's not like I legitimately forgot about it for an hour, came back and it was done. I had to do no labor to make this thing. Did you did you set an alarm on your phone? Bob, I popped the bottom of chair. Like the ginger.

13:15 All right. Now you gotta do. Yeah, exactly. That's how you make cocktails the right way. Forget about them. Some whiskey Nation. Do you ever think about Awards course he do you drink whiskey and watch movies. Which means that, you know, that nothing is validated until a group of random people say, hey we love what you're doing. The awesome thing about doc Swensons, whiskey is that it isn't just some group of schlubs that are given them Awards. They have been winning attention from some of the most important whiskey experts that you can imagine. They've been voted I'd best distillery in Washington state by the New York, International Spirits competition. They've been voted the best Independent bottler by the Ascot Awards, as well as the best finished bourbon from the Ascot awards for their La Mente. Exploratory Cask their sport or Cask series is where they release some of the most fascinating and adventurous experiments.

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14:48 So we've had vermouth on the podcast before we talked about sweet vermouth, which is what you normally get in Whiskey, based cocktails like the Manhattan. But we are working with a company today called via vermouth which comes from quadi Winery, in California. Once again, they sent us this product a long time ago, we promised them that we would get around to the Amaro and vermouth episode and we finally got here but what we're doing today is we're using dry vermouth with whiskey, which is Not something you typically see usually your do your dry vermouth, which is, you know, comes in the lighter colored bottle is something that you would mix with vodkas or jinns. That's what the classic martini is made with. So, it's interesting to see it being paired with whiskey, but we've got a couple really interesting cocktails that use this dry vermouth via vermouth was kind enough to send us two kinds of their dry vermouth1. That's called whisper dry, which is, you know, kind of like an in-between not super duper dry.

15:43 Good for Lighter beverage and then they've got their extra dry and Brad. I made the mistake. I think I'll say of using a whisper dry at first with both of these cocktails, because I was like, you know, I don't know if I should go all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Like, I don't really know how dry vermouth is going to play here, but when I used it with the whisper dry, the whiskey, just swallowed it up and because whiskey is such a dominant base. I think you gotta try to counter balance that with just like a big bold swing from the Right. Yeah, I think that I use the extra dry in our affinity and then I use the whisper and our old pal. So I got a little bit of both experience there, but we're going to walk through how to make both of these drinks. The first one is just a whiskey and vermouth the last one which branch is hinted at is called the old pal and that uses vermouth and Amaro with whiskey.

16:37 So we're going to start with this one called the affinity and Brad. This is basically what's called a perfect Manhattan which Which is equal parts dry and sweet vermouth. Except instead of using rye whiskey you use Scotch. So it's a, it's kind of like the Rob Roy that we made a long time ago on the podcast because I'm still one of my favorite dry really love the Rob Roy. I'm a, it's so good but you're using equal parts dry and sweet, vermouth Brad. This is a very simple build. Can you walk us through it? Yeah, it is literally two ounces of your favorite Scotch. I get Bob, would you go with? It's hard to just say Scotch, would you go with a pita Or a non peated Sky, I would go with a non peated and then if you were feeling like extra frisky, you could add like a quarter ounce. Maybe of like a really pd-1 just to kind of get a little bit of some argue like 10 maybe.

17:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So two ounces of scotch half ounce of dry vermouth I half ounce of sweet vermouth and then throw a few dashes of your gangster in there. Brad. I like this a lot. I think that coming off of the black Manhattan, this may not have been the one to do immediately afterwards. I like, even with that Scotch base, that I used again, I didn't use like a really high proof Scotch, so it came out a little bit, watery tasting for me, and then it had that note of sweet vermouth that I'm like, oh gosh, too many bad experiences with sweet vermouth and the first pass I took it this, I used the whisper dry vermouth instead of the extra dry. Once I swap that out with the extra dry, this was much much better but I do think you need a scotch that really like stands up as a cocktail Scotch. I I was using like Cutty Sark like something 80 proof. Yeah.

18:17 And that was just way too low proof at the end of the day. Yeah I think I use the Port. Charlotte Scotch. Oh you mentioning extra PD. Yeah I did and I liked it, I liked the peated scotch experience. I think that it mixed well with the extra dry vermouth. It is a drink that I liked but I don't know if I'd often be like, you know what? I'm gonna drink heavily peated driver. Vermouth just explosion of Manliness. I wonder if you should have like, increased the amount of vermouth like, both the sweet and the dry. Just because with that PDS, like, I have a feeling that would just cover up like anything else you add to that cocktail?

19:00 I definitely noticed the vermouth, the I think that what you said is true going with the extra dry, vermouth was the right choice to stand up to the penis but you definitely noticed the fact that it was a peden scotch. I will say That but honestly I we haven't really been scoring anything. I think I'd probably give it like a 7 out of 10 like it, like, it was a solid drink one that I enjoyed, but like I said there, you just have to be in a certain mood when it comes to Drinks like that, I think before we move into our last beverage here for the day, I want to give a quick shout out to both of these companies, you know, fast penny with their Americano and Via vermouth from quoddy winery because I tried all of these products just, you know, as a sip on their own No, yep. And usually with things like this with look, cures or with mixers, I don't really like to drink them by themselves, but I was really impressed at the complexity of all of these. Like, you know, so fast Penny actually sent us the dark Americano, then they send us a lighter one as well. That's used kind of how you would use something like a sous with a lighter drink.

20:05 They're both really, really good man. Yeah, the Americano I was blown away by how delicious their drinks were By themselves, and they're not meant to be trained by themselves, but honestly, it kind of reminds me of when Keepers heart, whiskey sent us each individual whiskey, that they make their blend out of. It's almost like the ability to taste each individual part of your cocktail and go. Oh, that's really nice. I wouldn't drink a bottle of it, you know, on its own, but I can see that this is a high-quality ingredient that I am putting into my cocktail. I think that's a Really important thing to do and a Marcano and Via are really doing that incredibly well.

20:50 Yeah, I was super impressed with the Via as well. The The Whisper dry was almost it. Almost had like an effervescence to it. It was almost like drinking a champagne but just like with this extra layer of herbal, you know, herbaceousness behind it. And then the extra Drive was like, oh wow, this really is extra dry and I'm interested to see how it works in cocktails and it stood up, man, I was really impressed with it because I was super Skeptical about it going in. I'd never tried dry vermouth in a whiskey cocktail before. This was my first time doing it, and I got to say, like this was a great place to start with it. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the old pal, because that is a drink that just has dry vermouth in it. It sure does. But it also has a different Amaro. Usually it's made with Campari again, we used the Americano here, you start off with one and a half ounces of bourbon or rye, I use dry.

21:39 Did you use Rye? I sure did 3/4 of an ounce of dry vermouth. Booth. I would suggest something on the extra dry. End to stand up to that rye and three quarters of an ounce of Campari or Americano in our case. That is that's it. There's no extra bitters. There's no Citrus in this at all. It's really just these three ingredients and you can garnish it with a Twist. If you'd like we'd recommend stirring this I guess that's the way the professionals would do it Brad I gotta say this was the one for me. That looks the best on paper and all the pictures I saw that was like, oh I'm gonna like that one. And it took me probably three or four tries to get a version of this that I really liked because again, my ride seemed to low proof and I started out with the whisper dry vermouth and that didn't really hold up. So it took me a while to hit on a version of this that I liked. And I suspect that this is one of those drinks that, because the Amaro is so like, crucial to it that you gotta find in a Morrow that you like and, and, and play around with that and then you'll Have a version of this that you really like I was going to say Bob, I actually wasn't, I guess I didn't realize I was supposed to use the dark Amaro for everything and I was like, wow, I haven't tried the the lighter, a Marcano. So I'm going to throw that in this drink and I actually really enjoyed it.

23:01 It made for a really nice light refreshing cocktail. That was a very close second behind the witty comeback, for my favorite drink that I made tonight. You know, I didn't even think about doing it. With the light Amaro, but I have a feeling that would be really, really good. Yeah. Like I said, Bob I think it brought a little bit of like a fruitiness to it and and almost like a honeyed, I don't know. Some sort of like a honey candied fruit feel to the drink then that made it pretty tasty and I will say there are variations on all of these drinks that you can keep making if you stock your bar a little bit Fuller of other things. Like there's a there's a drink called The Scofflaw which uses rye and dry vermouth. And lemon juice.

23:45 But you also add a little bit of grenadine. I didn't feel like making fresh grenadine in my house and it would never get drank before it turned bad. So, I didn't make the Scofflaw. It's a delicious drink though. There's one called the Brooklyn, which is whiskey dry vermouth, and then Maris Keno or Maraschino. However, you'd like to say it lecure, which again, it's like 30 bucks. I'm not going to get a bottle just to make this one drink. But if that's your thing, if you have a bottle sitting on your bar at home, go for the Brooklyn one, that I would highly recommend which I've had out at Restaurants before is a very popular one, called the paper plane, this is bourbon and a parole generally, and then also mixed with a darker Amaro and finished off with fresh lemon juice. It's basically just like an elevated version of a whiskey sour.

24:29 It is freaking great. I cannot recommend the paper plane highly enough. Yeah guys, if you, if you can't tell we like drinking alcohol. And you know, yes, we review whiskey constantly on this podcast. And when we do the cocktail, Episodes, we talked about whiskey cocktails but in the end guys there are some just fantastic mixes out there for you to try and it's really easy. Like I think that's the biggest thing I want to tell you is that man, all it takes is like one or two bottles of liquor that you like. And a few little add-ons that a lot of times you can make it home in a really simple Manner and boom, you are making cocktails for your friends.

25:12 You can learn how to make a batch of cocktail so that you just make one big picture, full of whatever you're making and you don't have to spend an hour making drinks for everyone, they can just pour it themselves like its it is one of the most fun ways to just have a really enjoyable time with friends so jump onto some cocktails. It's really a blast. All right, so that's it for us today we'd like to know which of these for cocktails. Are you going to try? Which of them is your favorite? You can find us to tell us all about it on our social media accounts, Facebook Twitter. Instagram at film whiskey, or jump onto our Discord. We have an entire Channel dedicated to what we are drinking. So take a picture of your cocktail that you made and post it onto our Discord server.

25:56 You can find a link to it at the end of every single one of our show notes, we will be back on Monday with another regularly scheduled episode. But until then I'm Bob book, I'm Reggie and we'll see you next time.