Italian Orange

The spirit

This is a mixer, and the 82 is a mixer’s score. Neat, it is too thick and too sweet to be an amaro. In a tall glass with soda, or in equal parts with a gin alternative and a vermouth alternative, the sweet-bitter citrus has something to do. The grip is real enough that a three-part drink can hang on it. Some of that grip may be texture from the formula rather than from a bitter pulled out of a barrel. The formula does not claim a barrel, and the aroma should not be judged as if it did.

Off-dry, with modest bitterness. That combination is why it mixes and why it bores when it is the only thing in the glass. Pith keeps the orange from turning into soda, and the close is dry peel rather than a sugar tail. It is cleaner than a cheap grenadine and sweeter than Campari, which is the lane it actually occupies. A slightly cosmetic citrus shows up if you smell it as a spirit. Smell it as a bitter orange aperitif and the brightness is the point. The candied cherry is a note in the taste, not the drink.

Over ice, with soda and orange. Do not pour it neat and call it a digestif. The job is the cocktail, and the job holds. The score says the mixer works. It does not say you should sip it after dinner.