Amaro #3: Parslamaronious

I love parsley. We had some fresh, flat Italian parsley in the house despite the cold weather since my wife needed it for some Christmas dishes. This got me thinking, "What would that taste like in an amaro?" My wife was skeptical, but I was inspired.

Let me introduce you to Amaro #3: Parslamaronious.

Yes, where the first two took the slightly uninspired names Amaro Primo and Amaro Secondo, I've decided to break the pattern here because I just love how very silly this name is. I made a lot less of this batch than of the other two, starting with just ten ounces of 90% ABV GNS. Yes, I'm using hobby jargon. These are exciting times. Into the spirit, I put the following in the hopes that it would complement the parsley:

• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 1/4 tsp decorticated cardamom
• 1/2 tsp anise seeds
• 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
• 2 tsp juniper
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 sprig flat Italian parsley
• 2 tsp gentian root

The rosemary was from our garden, but it was not the healthiest sprig. I used a generous amount of gentian root, a proportion more like the one at Open Source Liqueurs than the Serious Eats recipe that inspired the first amaro I made. You might wonder why I used so much juniper. The reason is that we have a lot of it. We got a deal on dried juniper berries years ago and use them occasionally for making flavored sodas inspired by DRY Juniper soda (which doesn't seem to be available any longer). 

Still no mortar and pestle here, so I smashed everything except the parsley and rosemary sprigs with my muddler. It seems like that should be adequate. I macerated for 12 days, leaving the jar in the buffet and giving it a swirl about once a day. I was going to leave it for two weeks, but reflecting Sammie Williams' recipe at Open Source Liqueurs made me process it a little earlier than planned. Also, it was Scout night, so I had the kitchen to myself. The recipe I used for my first amaro, and which I improvised on for my second, diluted the spirit with simple syrup. Williams' recipe uses a 3:5:2 ratio of alcohol, water, and sugar. (AWS, jargonites.) He also recommends against making a syrup and for using turbinado or other solid sugars in his "Making Amaro" article.

I strained out the solids and then split my alcohol in two. With the first half, I measured out the 3:5:2 quantities, using entirely turbinado sugar, and put them in the blender. We have a nice blender, and 30 seconds of whizzing had it all mixed and bubbly. I actually got a little worried here when I opened it because it also got pretty warm. The color was unfortunately rather unappetizing: whereas the infused alcohol was chartreuse green, the mix was slightly brown yellow... not enough to be a nice caramel brown, just a kind of dirty green. With the other half, I mixed up a syrup using the same water-to-sugar proportion. This had only about half turbinado sugar and half granulated sugar since I had used up all the turbinado in the house. Dissolving the sugar, letting it cool, and then mixing in the alcohol all went smoothly, as in the past. I felt more control over this than I did the blender, to be honest, and I couldn't tell any difference between the two batches except that the second one was slightly less brown. It must have been the sugar.

How does it taste? Well, right off the bat, yes, you get parsley. Neat! Also, a little weird. But it's not bad weird. Not like the time I infused oregano and some other herbs into some mead and it tasted like liquid oregano. That ended up going down the drain. This amaro is actually quite nice, as long as you're looking for something herb-forward. A funny thing is that although the parsleyness is detectable at first, it becomes less so with a few sips. I wonder how it will taste after aging a bit. Since it was a small batch, I wonder if it will last long enough to find out. 

I should also mention that I really like this AWS ratio. My previous two amari are very sweet and syrupy. It's not a bad mouthfeel, but it's not real classy either. In case anyone is really curious about the math, I did counted my 90% ABV GNS as being essentially 100% alcohol when doing the algebra, which means my final ratio is not exactly 3:5:2. Considering that I'm not using a milligram scale nor even filtering out the tiny bits that end up the bottle, I'm not worried about a little variation from the formula.

Coming back to the Open Source Liqueurs recipe one last time, I really appreciate Williams' site, and I want to try his base amaro. In terms of approach, I am curious about his maceration in 50% ABV, since I've been macerating directly in everclear. My birthday is coming up, so I splurged and ordered odds and ends from Mountain Rose Herbs to try making something akin to his recipe. Ordering myrrh on Epiphany also seemed appropriate. I look forward to making my own #4 once I have everything together.

If you got this far through my contemplations and reflections about homemade amaro, come over for a drink. Cheers!