I will fully admit that the amount of new spirits hitting the market each month terrifies me.
If you thought we had overloaded our shelves past what consumers could actually drink in 2020, nothing is changing in 2021—even with bars still not back in operation.
While I try to be as nice as possible when telling the 567th new gin producer this week that I don’t think his or her product has a place in our store, there is one category where I’m almost always willing to make room: Italian liqueurs.
We need another craft spirit at Mission like we need another hole in the head, but Italian spirits are bottles that actually get consumed. Modern Bourbon and Scotch collectors enjoy taking photos of their unopened bottles, but those who are into Italian food, wine, and spirits generally take photos of their recycling bins.
Anyone who scarfs down pizza, pasta, and prosciutto with any regularity is usually cranking through Prosecco with equal gusto. Hence, I’ve just brought in a number of small-sized Sardinian delights that can easily be dolloped into a spritz. Plus, a few other oddities that I think have a place on your picnic table this Spring.
Oliver McCrum is an old friend in the wine business and, like many small wine importers, he caught the spirits bug a few years back. Given his extensive contacts throughout Italy, Oliver teamed up with small distillers—often in remote locations—to create one of the coolest and most diverse collections in our business.
The newest arrival is a label called Bresca Dorada, located in the wild inland countryside of Sardinia, near Muravera. Founded by two beekeepers who started by making honey with Mirto, they soon expanded into Mirto berry liqueur, myrtle leaf liqueur, and other citrus-based elixirs and amari. We’ve got the following in stock in manageable 200ml flask sizes (NOTE: all the bottles look like the flasks in the photo above despite our web pics):
Bresca Dorada Mirtamaro - Made mostly of Sardinian botanicals infused in pure grain alcohol, then blended with both green and red Mirto. You’ve got some anise notes, pine, and classic bittersweet flavor with good weight. Fun stuff.
Bresca Dorada Mirto Verde - McCrum’s notes: Mirto Verde is a rarer liqueur than classic Mirto. It is made of freshly hand-harvested myrtle leaves and flowers from the inland part of Sardinia known as Sette Fratelli, around the estate. (The leaves must come from close to the estate because they must be infused immediately after picking.) The leaves are infused in pure grain alcohol for at least two months for a slow and complete extraction of aromatic substances. The only additions are sugar, honey (up to 5% of the sweetener, more would give too much of a honey flavor) and water (to reach the right proof for drinking). Myrtle leaves are used in Sardinian cooking, for example to flavor suckling pig, and they are spicy and said to be reminiscent of orange.
Bresca Dorada Arangiu - The Sardinian substitute for Triple Sec or any orange liqueur. Super flavorful, bright, and loaded with pure citrus flavor.
The Il Gusto di Amalfi liqueurs have been in the U.S. for years now, as it was one of Oliver’s original imports, but rather than the basic Limon and Mandarin-cinos, we’ve now got something that I’m somewhat obsessed with: Fennel-cino!!
If I were to drink this with a Fennel biscotto I think my head would explode.
Il Gusto di Amalfi Finocchietto - McCrum notes: Wild fennel grows profusely on the Amalfi coast, as it does in California. The seeds from the tall plants are harvested by hand in October when the seed-heads are dry, dried, sifted, macerated in pure alcohol for about 40 days, then blended with sugar and bottled.
Who wants to hang out in my backyard this weekend, eat pizza, crack some Prosecco, and sip on some of these?
-David Driscoll