Riffing on recipes - Amarosa 2.0?

Okay, so Amaro Cora is not made anymore. (The place I tried to order from contacted me to let me know that was a mistake on their website.) I searched and found an Italian website about bitters that explained it’s no longer being made. Darn!

Okay - next best: try riffing on it with amaros I can get. Since we own campari, I tried with that.

First try:

1 shot gin
1 shot campari
1 shot kirschwasser

WAAAAAY too much campari. Totally dominated by the campari flavor. Never mind. Not doing that again!

Next try:

1 shot gin
½ shot campari
1 shot kirschwasser

Much better! Balanced, bitter but not overly so. All the ingredients obviously play their part here, including the twist of lemon. I do want to try with Aperol some time, as I suspect it’ll be a bit closer to the “real” cora flavor.

And off onto a tangent:
Lillet Amarosa:

2 shots Lillet Rose’
½ shot kirschwasser
½ shot gin → brought up after tasting to 1 shot gin

Almost. Adding the extra half shot of gin brought it to a decent flavor balance.

DH’s comments were -- the Lillet Rose' version is like dating a girl who wears long socks and has her hair made up in tresses -- and can’t go out with you on Sunday morning ‘cuz she goes to Church then of course.  Can be wonderful and sweet, if you can stay awake...

The Campari version is like dating a girl who wears torn fishnet stockings, has plenty of tattoos, and has her hair in a Mohawk.  You may or may not be able to build on this but one thing is sure -- you won’t be bored!-)

Update: I ended up only drinking about half mine. The gin was definitely affecting me pretty strongly by the time I had tasted the versions. So, I gave the rest of mine to DH and switched back to water. (See - this is why I do fancy cocktails - I'm such a lightweight I can only handle one, so I might as well make that one worthwhile. )

Amaro Cora

I suspect we'll have to skip a couple here and there due to availability of ingredients. Bitters is one of the common culprits - especially the more esoteric ones. Happily, many of them are being revived due to the popularity of mixology.

I did manage, after much searching, to find a source that claims to let me order Amaro Cora, the heart of the next but one cocktail, the Amarosa. (Two of the sources referenced in the book didn't work: one is out of business, and the other is out of stock.) An Italian site I read claimed it was no longer being made. Crossing my fingers that the place I ordered, raederswine.com isn't just teasing about the availability.

Of course, the vendor had a $75 minimum order, so I took the opportunity to pick up the some other ingredients that I'll be needing for the future, including Cherry Heering, Applejack, and Plymouth Gin. I did tell them to contact me if they aren't able to fill the order for the Amaro Cora, since that's the point of ordering from them.

We'll see how long it takes to arrive. In the meantime, we'll just put a sticky note there and return to it when the ingredients arrive.