Amaro explained: the families, their strength and where the law puts them

Amaro is Italian for bitter, and it names a bittersweet style of liqueur. Difford’s Guide describes amari as usually deep tawny brown, flavoured with herbs, spices and other botanicals, with strengths from as low as 16% to over 40% ABV. Difford’s Guide adds that the word is not defined in the EU’s own list of drink categories.

That leaves each bottle to land where its recipe puts it. Two entries in Annex II of retained Regulation (EC) No 110/2008 matter here, read on legislation.gov.uk on 1 November 2026. In Annex II, category 32 is liqueur: sugar of 100 grams a litre or more, counted as invert sugar, and 15% ABV or more. Annex II also lists category 30, bitter-tasting spirit drinks, as a predominantly bitter taste and 15% ABV, with no sugar figure, sold under a name such as amer or bitter.

The liqueur guide sets out the 100 gram and 15% lines in full. A sweetened amaro at 15% ABV or more is a liqueur, and a bitter with little sugar is a spirit drink, so one Italian word covers both. Annex II sets a lower sugar line, 80 grams a litre, for liqueurs whose only aromatic is gentian or a similar plant.

Amaro Nonino is a liqueur. The Italian page of its maker calls it il liquore, and the producer’s own page gives 35% ABV, well above the 15% minimum. Averna, Cynar and Campari are liqueurs on the library’s pages too, at 29%, 16.5% and 25% ABV. Cynar shows how low a liqueur can sit.

Fernet-Branca is the other case. It is a spirit drink at 39% ABV, and its maker publishes no sugar figure that would put it at 100 grams a litre. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails says fernets are traditionally unsweetened apart from the burnt sugar that colours them, which fits. Its importer’s label still says amaro, which shows how widely the word is used.

Aperol falls below both lines. At 11% ABV on its maker’s figure it is under the 15% minimum of each, which is why the liqueur guide calls it neither a spirit nor a liqueur.

Difford’s Guide names three styles inside amaro: fernet, a particularly bitter style, rabarbaro, made with rhubarb, and carciofo, made with artichoke. The rest sort by region and by what leads the flavour. The table gives each family, the library’s example and the strength a named source prints.

Strength is the quickest way to place a bottle. Cynar is the lightest amaro here at 16.5% ABV and Fernet-Branca the strongest at 39%, with most of the others between 21% and 35%. Montenegro’s own site prints 23%, the same figure as Difford’s Guide.

Aperol is 11% ABV and led by orange, Campari is 25%, and the amari in the library run from 16.5% to 39%. Strength moves with bitterness only loosely: Averna at 29% leads with sweetness and keeps its bitterness for the finish, while Cynar at 16.5% is bitter, herbal and faintly savoury.

Swaps shift a drink. Averna is the nearest common bottle to Nonino, but the Paper Plane is four equal parts, so a bottle that is sweeter or more bitter moves the balance. Aperitivo drinks explained lays out the lighter end of the family, with Suze, as a ladder of drinks.

Difford’s Guide describes the traditional method. Roots, barks, herbs, citrus peel and other botanicals are macerated in neutral spirit, brandy or wine, the infusion is filtered and sweetened, and the drink is aged in cask or bottle, often for years. Every maker keeps its own botanicals and timings, so the method is a pattern and not a recipe.

The makers that publish detail show the range. Nonino uses a grape distillate aged for at least 12 months in barriques, and Fernet-Branca infuses 27 herbs, roots and spices and rests the mixture for a year in oak. How much sugar is added separates a sweet amaro such as Averna from a dry one such as Fernet-Branca, and with the strength it decides which name goes on the label.

Digestivo names when a drink is poured, in the way aperitivo does. Difford’s Guide says amari are traditionally served chilled and neat, sometimes with a citrus slice, or diluted with tonic water over ice as an aperitif. Nonino’s page serves its amaro at room temperature to end a meal, over ice with an orange slice, or hot as a punch.

The word names an occasion and a custom, not an effect. Understanding cocktail balance explains why bitterness gives a drink its backbone, and the glossary defines digestif and aperitif side by side.

As an equal partner, Amaro Nonino takes 30ml of the four equal parts in the Paper Plane, with bourbon, Aperol and lemon. The Naked and Famous is four equal parts too, with mezcal, yellow Chartreuse, Aperol and lime, and the M & M is mezcal and Amaro Montenegro in equal 40ml measures.

As a replacement, Averna stands in for the vermouth in the Black Manhattan, 20ml against 50ml of rye. The Bywater uses 22.5ml of Averna with aged rum, green Chartreuse and falernum, and the Little Italy puts 15ml of Cynar beside rye and sweet vermouth.

As the main ingredient, Cynar leads the Bitter Giuseppe at 60ml with 30ml of sweet vermouth, about 1.5 UK units. In the Rabo de Galo 15ml of Cynar joins 60ml of cachaça, and the Fat Tire pairs 30ml of amaro with aged rum and fruit juice.

Fernet-Branca works in small measures. The Hanky Panky and the Toronto take 7.5ml each, to add menthol and dry the sweetness, while the Fernandito pours 50ml over ice and fills the glass with cola.

The red and gentian bitters play the same part in longer drinks. The Rome with a View sets 30ml of Campari with dry vermouth and lime under soda, and Suze supplies the bitterness in a White Negroni.

A small glass after dinner, a single large cube or a long drink with soda all suit an amaro. Difford’s Guide has Cynar poured over ice with an orange slice and topped with soda or tonic, and 50ml of it topped with soda comes to about 0.8 UK units. Averna drunk neat in a 25ml measure is about 0.7 units.

Shelf life follows strength. The spirit-strength bottles on the library’s pages, Nonino, Averna and Fernet-Branca, keep a year or more once opened if capped and kept out of the light, in our experience, and none needs the fridge. Cynar, at 16.5% ABV, is described on its page as keeping about a year before the aroma flattens.

The category wording is Annex II to retained Regulation (EC) No 110/2008, read on legislation.gov.uk on 1 November 2026. Strengths come from the makers’ pages for Nonino and Montenegro, from Fernet-Branca’s importer, and from Difford’s Guide for Averna, Cynar, Braulio and Ramazzotti, all read on 1 November 2026. The family names follow Difford’s Guide’s amaro category page, and the classifications follow the library’s ingredient pages, which the liqueur guide shares.