Frangelico
Italian hazelnut liqueur in a bottle shaped like a friar, made in Piedmont from toasted hazelnuts with cocoa, vanilla and coffee worked in behind them. Sweet, nutty and used in small measures, where it adds roundness rather than flavour you can name.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Toasted hazelnut over vanilla and cocoa, sweet and rounded, finishing with a faint coffee bitterness that keeps it from being merely sugary.
Storage & Handling
Upright in a cool, dark place, sealed. At 20% it keeps well for years, though the nut character softens slowly once opened and a bottle several years old is noticeably rounder and less aromatic than a fresh one.
Usage
Small measures, almost always. The official IBA Tiki takes 5ml against a glass of rum and juice, where it rounds the edges without reading as hazelnut. It also works in coffee drinks and as a float on an aged spirit, and it turns cloying quickly at anything above a bar spoon.
What It Is
A hazelnut liqueur from Piedmont, the region that also gives the world its best hazelnuts and, not coincidentally, Nutella.
The hazelnuts are toasted and infused, and cocoa, vanilla and coffee are worked in behind them, which is why the finished liqueur reads as more complex than a nut syrup. The friar-shaped bottle with its rope belt is marketing built on a story about monastic production that does not survive much scrutiny; the liqueur as sold dates from 1978. The recipe is good enough that the costume is unnecessary.
Against Amaretto
The two get treated as interchangeable nut liqueurs and they are not.
Amaretto leads with almond and marzipan — an aroma from apricot kernels as often as from almonds — and it is sharper, sweeter and more assertive. Frangelico is rounder and softer, and the hazelnut sits behind the vanilla and cocoa rather than in front of them. In a drink that wants a nut note to be recognisable, amaretto is the choice; in one that wants the edges taken off something, Frangelico does it without putting its hand up.
Why Small Measures
It is sweet, it is viscous, and it coats the palate in a way that carries well past the sip it arrived in.
The official IBA Tiki uses 5ml alongside 15ml of amaretto in a glass holding well over 200ml of liquid, and that measure is deliberate: the Frangelico is filling a gap between the amaretto and the rum rather than contributing a flavour of its own. Pour 20ml instead and the drink turns into a nut dessert. This is a bottle used with a bar spoon rather than a jigger, and treating it otherwise is the most common way to ruin a drink with it.
Where It Works
Coffee first, and everything else after.
An espresso martini with a bar spoon of Frangelico in it is a better drink than one without, and a plain espresso with a few millilitres poured in is the fastest demonstration of what the bottle does. Beyond that it rounds tiki builds, softens aged rum and whiskey without sweetening them much, and stands up in cream drinks where amaretto would dominate. It is not a bottle to build a cocktail around; it is a bottle to finish one with.
Top Tips
- Five millilitres is a normal measure. Twenty is a dessert.
- It is nuttier and rounder than amaretto, which leads with almond and marzipan.
- Try it in coffee before you try it in a cocktail: the pairing is the obvious one.
Common Questions
What does Frangelico taste like?
Toasted hazelnut over vanilla and cocoa, sweet and rounded, with a faint coffee bitterness on the finish that stops it reading as merely sugary. It is softer and less assertive than amaretto.
What is the difference between Frangelico and amaretto?
Amaretto leads with almond and marzipan and is sharper and more assertive. Frangelico is hazelnut-based, rounder and softer, with the nut sitting behind vanilla and cocoa. They are not interchangeable in a drink that wants the nut note to be identifiable.
Why do recipes use so little Frangelico?
Because it is sweet, viscous and lingering. The official IBA Tiki takes five millilitres in a drink of well over two hundred, where its job is to fill a gap rather than contribute a flavour. A jigger of it turns most drinks into dessert.
Is the monastery story true?
Not in any useful sense. The friar-shaped bottle and the tale of monastic production are branding; the liqueur as sold dates from 1978. The product is good enough that the costume adds nothing.