I was in Nashville last week to film a wedding and visited a few bars, one of which was supposed to be the best/newest in USA called Fox Bar. They were good but not sure how they got that title. The cocktails were ok, I had one shaken, one stirred, one on the rocks, they had a tiki one there called Tales from the Deep served in a Fox tiki mug. As much as I love Ardbeg it just tasted like a smoke bomb. Next door was probably the coolest bar I ever been in, a 1930s circus theme called Tiger Bar. This was far better but still did not impress me outside of the music/vibe (all 1930s music which I love). One new spirit that kept popping up even in regular bars was Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto. It is an Italian Liqueur featuring citrus and herbs from Southern Italy (Calabria & Sicily). Again, while I was not impressed with the cocktails I am thinking of spending the $40 for a bottle to experiment with. There was one cocktail at the Tiger Bar I wish I had called “Snake Charmer” and included olive oil. Anyone had it? Any one ever had Italicus? Is it worth the high price tag?
I guess the reason I was disappointed was because there was only one rum drink, a few gin, but plenty of vodka and tequila drinks on the menu. I am sure most of you know vodka didn’t really make it to the USA till the 1950s. Tequila I don’t know about, but I am sure they were not drinking it during prohibition in this area. I went with what I thought was a sure fire hit, one of my favorites called the Corpse Reviver I first learned about in Ted Haig’s Forgotten Cocktails, but I think I make it better at home, and they use Swedish Punsch instead of Lillet Blanc. The menu is beautifully designed, I’ve attached it. Funny to see a Grasshopper on there too.
Chopper remains the best of the tiki bars (or any) for cocktails, Pearl Diver was just ok. I am thinking its really not a cocktail town, they have several distilleries and its mostly a whiskey/beer sort of town, which is fine, but again, not sure how these places got the title as “Best” in the country.
Given the highly stylised bottle, I didn’t expect much from Italicus, and it exceeded my expectations. If you only have one or two citrus liqueurs, it’s not a bad choice, but as someone who has a LOT of citrus liqueurs, it doesn’t fill a need in my collection.
I’ve had some excellent drinks made with Italicus out at bars, including one that was sort of like a tequila Martini. Consequently I bought a bottle for home, but I don’t find I reach for it often.
Could be worth the purchase if you enjoy experimentation or newer specs.
Rosolio is about as esoteric it gets. There’s clearly a liqueur tradition lurking there, but its parameters and definition feel awfully murky. Italicus seems to be a bergamot rosolio—a bergamot liqueur—but what else is implied I’d love to know.
This is from Wikipedia, it does sound interesting, and still having relatives in Sicily its something I will likely want to experience even if it was not memorable in the cocktail:
Italicus uses CalabrianBergamot oranges, Sicilian citrons, chamomile from Lazio, and herbs from Northern Italy: lavender, yellow roses, lemon balm, and gentian.[1][2] It is classified as a type of rosolio, a light, sweet, and floral aperitivo traditionally made using the common sundewherb.[1][3] The recipe for Italicus includes the creator’s family tradition of adding citrus to the liqueur.[1]
The spirit has a fragrant smell, of citrus, bergamot, herbal bitterness, and the suggestion of sweetness. It tastes similar, of citrus, grass, and flowers, with sweetness and some bitterness.[1] The unaged, nonvintage spirit is 20 percent alcohol by volume.[4]
Italicus is produced at Torino Distillati, a family-owned distillery in Moncalieri (near Turin) established in 1906.[5][4]It is bottled in an aquamarine-colored bottle made of ribbed glass, and colored to represent the Amalfi Coast. The bottle’s stopper shows a figure made to represent both Bacchus, Greek god of wine, and the Vitruvian Man.[2]
Yeah, I’ve seen that—reads suspiciously like a press release. The Wikipedia page on rosolio doesn’t feel very authoritative to me, either.
Turning to the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, David Wondrich’s Rosolio entry outlines a historical arc beginning in the 1400s as a sundew aphrodesiac, evolving into a mainstream European herbal liqueur featuring saffron and spices, to a generic, sweet liqueur in the 19th Century with spice or floral notes and—most commonly—citrus-dominant flavoring. Italicus sounds like a modern version of that last trend.
My tentative takeaway is that—for the purposes of the cocktail era—rosolio is a squirrely sector of regional Italian liqueurs (Piemonte, Sicily) with unique flavoring that is a bit more nuanced and complex than blunt and straightforward. Like amari, one rosolio is not likely a substitute for another. Any drink calling for rosolio without specifying which one is leaving a great deal of discretion to the bartender.
Edit: I once had a bottle of Stock Rosolio. It was definitely of the rose petal/citrus/spice persuasion.
I would wholeheartedly recommend purchasing Rosen Bitters (Distilleria Dell’Alpe Rosa Alpina Liqueur) however. Never had anything else like that—does that qualify as a rosolio?
Way to bury the lede, guys…made from CARNIVOROUS PLANTS?
Those Distilleria Dell’Alpe products look cool, but the Rosa Alpina Liqueur looks it might be more like a “red bitter” (Campari-esque) than a rosolio. What does it taste like?
According to original registration documents incorporated into the bottle design, the Rosa Alpina is in the amaro class. It would definitely work where a Campari-style bitter is called for, but the flavor experience comes in two distinct phases: first, a sweet, floral liqueur which contains raspberries, and then the woodsy gentian aftertaste.
I hadn’t realized they’re the same producer as Kapriol, which I’ve bought but not opened.
I can enthusiastically recommend the Rosolio Doragrossa, made in Torino. It’s sweet, reasonably strong (30% abv), and subtly flavored with citrus, cinnamon and other botanicals. It’s not the sort of thing to move into a recipe and take over, but .25 or .5 oz in an otherwise-simple recipe will do wonders for the depth of flavor. Italicus is rather more boldly flavored, but in the same class.
And yeah, like many traditional Italian products, rosolio is indeed squirrelly: nobody agrees on the details, and yet everyone somehow agrees on the broad outlines; the limits of the category, and (by some mysterious process) knows when they have been exceeded.
So the through-line here which should be made explicit is that these were designed as love potions. “Rosolio” does come from the words for rose + oil, when these were late medieval decoctions of rose petals. And the carnivorous Drosera were thought to make you a pickup artist, just like the plants lured insects to be eaten.
“Rosolio” is in fact from “ros solis,” the Latin for “sundew,” which is apparently what that whole family of carnivorous plants are still called in English. But yes, they were considered aphrodisiac, by analogy as you say. Until the 17th century, European thought considered such analogies important as signs from God that showed them how to use a certain plant–and every plant had a use, if only we could discover it. Of course, 17th-18th century philosophy drove a Mack truck through that kind of reasoning, at least for the educated. One tiny bit of fallout from that was a great simplification of alcoholic medicinal tonic recipes, with all kinds of symbolic ingredients shaken out. Usually, what was left had the advantage of tasting good–or really, impressively bad. Hence rosolio and fernet. (Sundew itself didn’t make the cut; I suspect it lacked a distinctive flavor.)
