The bittersweet taste of an amaro spritz already has its place firmly in our summer drinks orders. But this year people looking for something a bit different and more interesting should look at Amaro Santoni. This delicious and delicate liqueur has just launched in the UK and will be on the menu of London’s finest bars this summer, including Chiltern Firehouse, Luca, The Berkeley Hotel and Eataly, as well as in the drinks cabinets of the capital’s smartest drinkers.

Amari are bitter liqueurs from Italy, a concoction of macerated herbs, botanicals and fruits in alcohol. Amaro Santoni was created by Gabriello Santoni in 1961 in Florence from a secret recipe that combines 34 herbs including the crucial flavours of rhubarb root, iris flower and olive leaf to create a drink that is at once sweet, bitter, complex and satisfying. The rhubarb and iris link the drink firmly to its palace of creation – rhubarb root has long been sold in the merchant spice shops of Florence since the Renaissance and the iris features on the Florentine coat of arms.

As well as being delicious to sip neat, Amaro Santoni makes fantastic cocktails, either simply combined with tonic or blood orange juice (any orange juice will do really) or as a base for a spritz, Americano or negroni. At 16 per cent, it’s at the lower end of alcoholic content for an amaro, making it an ideal choice for a long summer low-alcohol drink.

Amaro Santoni won a gold medal at the International Wine & Spirit Competition in 2021, double gold at the International Spirits Challenge 2021 and gold at the Women’s Wine & Spirits Awards 2021, so there are many people who know just how delicious this amaro is. Get yours from The Whisky Exchange while you can. 

amarosantoni.com