Amara Sour Drink Recipes

This simple recipe takes the 3-2-1 spritz formula to heart, relying on just three quality ingredients. Amari styles vary wildly in viscosity and flavor, from intensely bitter to lightly sweet and floral, which means different bottles match different moods. To make sure you're always prepared, stock a few of the bitter liqueurs and start drinking. Current favorites include French China-China (spiced, earthy and orange-based), Sicilian Averna (sweet, citrusy), Californian Lo-Fi Gentian Amaro (juicy, floral) and Brooklyn-based Forthave Spirits Marseille Amaro (herbal, with warm spices). To these, add any hyper-regional bottles you've tucked into a suitcase. All spritz nicely, especially when paired with a lime wheel.

Provided by Rebekah Peppler

Categories     cocktails

Yield 1 cocktail

Number Of Ingredients 4

• Ingredients

This drink, run through with amaro, riffs on the endlessly adaptable sour template (spirit-citrus-sweetener). A maraschino cherry and half a grapefruit wheel are muddled with sugar early on, to sweeten and flavor the drink, while another cherry and half-wheel are added just before serving. That allows the fruit to slowly become infused with gin and amaro, creating garnish and boozy snack. Reach for a sweeter-leaning amaro, or throw caution to the bitter wind and grab something more intense. If you want to balance the amaro's bitter edges with a touch more sweetness, add a dash or three of the maraschino cherry syrup to your shaker or serve with extra cherries for middrink pops of sweetness.

Provided by Rebekah Peppler

Categories     cocktails

Time 5m

Yield 1 drink

Number Of Ingredients 7

• Ingredients

Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the bar manager of Pépé Le Moko and Clyde Common in Portland, Ore., enjoyed amaretto sours as a young man. As a bartender, he embarked on a project to make a better version of this often-mocked drink, which was typically composed of just amaretto and sour mix. He boosted the alcoholic strength by mixing in nearly a full ounce of overproof bourbon, replaced the sour mix with real lemon juice and added an egg white - a common ingredient in many sour recipes from the past. Given all the alterations, he might have given the cocktail a new name, but decided against that. "There wouldn't have been any point," he said. "There's a big difference between if I took this drink and made it good, and if I invented a new drink with amaretto. The latter wouldn't have the same gravitas."

Provided by Robert Simonson

Categories     cocktails

Yield 1 drink

Number Of Ingredients 7

• Ingredients

Nutrition Facts : @context http, Calories 215, UnsaturatedFat 0 grams, Carbohydrate 21 grams, Fat 0 grams, Fiber 0 grams, Protein 2 grams, SaturatedFat 0 grams, Sodium 31 milligrams, Sugar 19 grams