Braulio Amaro Alpino

John: It is actually a great tip. People have to pay attention to the whole lecture, though—it’s gonna be a little bit longer than usual.

I’ve always liked bitters. Bitter after-dinner drinks you have at the end of a meal. It helps you digest. It’s got all kinds of herbs and stuff in it. They tend to have gentian, which is typically the main ingredient in most.

Adam: Don’t they have… what’s the other thing in the bitters? Anise?

John: Some do, some don’t. The ones with anise tend to be more like pastis.

Adam: I like the anise. I like the anise ones.

John: Well, there are lots of those around—but that’s not what we’re talking about. They don’t have much anise in these Amari, which is a subsegment of bitters—specifically the ones made in Italy. Most of these were designed in the mid-1800s. They’re still using the exact same formula.

So what happened was, I started drinking these with my son-in-law Brennan. He has, what people who understand these things would call, an “inquisitive palate”. He memorizes taste. He’s really good.

I do blind tastings with these kids just to make sure they’re not trying to buffalo me.

So we got into these bitters—specifically Amari—and started going through a lot of them. Over a two-year period we probably went through… I already had a bunch of them, and we tried the Swiss ones, the French ones… and then started focusing on the best.

Eventually, we determined the absolute best after-dinner drink. And he had some stomach issues, but these bitters are fabulous for after meals. You just have a shot—about an ounce—in a bigger glass at the end of the meal. Like a digestif, as they might call it in France.

Braulio is the crème de la crème of the great Amari out of Italy. I tried them all—the Fernets and the rest. It’s so hard to beat this particular product. It’s not cheap—they sell it in liter bottles for about 50 bucks.

You can go to the website—it’s available everywhere. And it’s a special kind of subsegment of Amaro: the Alpine ones. That means it was made in the mountains, using mountain herbs. It’s got a blend of herbs that was determined back then—and most of these things, by the way, started off as medicines. They were developed by pharmacists in the 1800s. And this particular one is a stunner.

Adam: Is it available at Costco?

John: Mmm, not that I know of. Maybe on and off, but I’ve never seen it there. I don’t get it at Costco.

But amarobraulio.com – That’s the brand. That’s their website. It’s a beautiful product. It’s aged. It’s just… it’s the best of the best. We’ve tried all of them—this is the go-to.

Adam: Do you have indigestion after dinner? Then you need… Braulio! It’s John C. Dvorak’s Tip of the Day.