Dave Shea – Amaro

Toasted Fig Leaf Amaro

2026-10-21T12:00:00Z

As I've been discovering more of the edible flora around here, I've gone further down the rabbit hole of non-standard ingredients. An earlier batch made with spring blossoms and evergreen tips was my first foray with them, this is my second.

I discovered the surprisingly coconut and almond flavour to fresh fig leaves during the summer, and since I've come across beer made using them in the past I figured they could make for an interesting amaro.

Base

600mL 50% vodka
~250g water, tbd
~100g refined cane sugar, tbd

Aromatics

10g toasted fig leaf
8g currants
5g toasted oak chips
3g cacao nibs
3g toasted coconut
2.65g tamarind
1g bitter orange peel
1g gentian
0.25g dried ginger
0.25g ceylon cinnamon
0.25g mace
0.25g black tea
0.25g burdock

I grabbed the fig leaves a few months back when they were newer and dehydrated them to store, since I try to avoid fresh botanicals. Processing was easy, I just had to crush the dried leaves in my hands till they were small pieces then toasted in a stainless steel pan on the stovetop till just short of browned, but heavily aromatic. The place smelled like freshly-baked cookies, so I designed the recipe on that theme and added black tea and burdock to ground the more grassy characters with depth and earthiness.

First taste with a bit of sugar the next day says I might be onto something, I think this one will benefit from ageing.

With each batch, I keep aside a small bottle that I can sample from over time and keep the notes here updated as it develops. More when available.

Grape Vermouth

2026-09-30T12:00:00Z

Vermouth is more involved than amaro. It's essentially a base wine fortified with a high-alcohol tincture, the wine can be purchased but to fully make it from scratch the first step is fermenting some form of sugar. Grapes are traditional, but other sugar sources like honey, apples, or even just straight sugar can work.

I need to write up the first time I made vermouth this past summer, but the headline was that batch was basically an accident. I had a fermented wine that had been sitting unused for a few years that I intended to experiment with adding tinctures to, but when I pulled some to start sampling I discovered time had been kind to it and committed to a full batch.

This new batch is a more intentional fermentation using grape-infused honey to create an initial honey wine base, which I'll later fortify with a steeped tincture.

Base

3.5L water
~1.5kg honey
360g concord grapes
200g refined cane sugar
EC-1118 champagne yeast
pectic enzyme
Fermaid-K
Diammonium phosphate

Aromatics

tbd!

The first step in this batch was crushing the grapes to a base must and pouring on honey dissolved in warm water. I'll leave fermentation details for a future process write-up, but in broad strokes: I aerated the must well, rehydrated wine yeast and added along with pectic enzyme, then at 24hr intervals for the first three days I added equal portions of Fermaid-K and diammonium phosphate to provide critical nutrients during early fermentation. Due to cooler fall temperatures I let this ferment at room temperature near an outside door to roughly regulate at slightly lower than ambient.

At the three week mark it had reached around 12% ABV with some sugar left. I expect the base wine to reach around 14%, though it's the first alcoholic ferment I've done in many years so we'll see what actually shakes out. I transferred it a bit shy of terminal gravity so the yeast can still work for a few days and scrub the oxygen it picks up on transfer, more of a problem with the smaller batches. Since I left behind the main yeast cake, whatever is in solution will have to continue the ferment albeit slower. Could take 2-3 months to fully stablize.

Once I have a feel for the base wine, I'll design the botanical addition around flavours that accent and add depth.

With each batch, I keep aside a small bottle that I can sample from over time and keep the notes here updated as it develops. More when available.

Split tests – time

2026-07-25T12:00:00Z

My first batch of amaro was a random recipe I found online that I changed almost completely. I didn't have a clue what I was doing and figured I probably screwed it up, I hated it for months but then it turned around into something that seemed kinda... good?

I opened my last bottle around the time I was thinking about doing some process tests, so I made the same recipe again (with added lemon peel) to run the same base recipe through four different processes and build a better understanding of how time of additions and ageing affects flavour development.

Recipe

375mL 50% vodka
175g water
125g refined cane sugar

Long steep:

2.5 grams sweet orange peel
2.5 grams lemon peel
1.5g star anise
1g cassia
0.25g clove
0.25g cardamom
0.25g timut peppercorn
0.15g cubeb
0.15g grains of paradise

Short steep:

2 grams gentian root
0.5g coffee
0.25g birch bark

Using my base process as a guide, these batches differ on how long the ingredients are infused, and how long they'll be aged.

Batch A – Made with the same long process I've been using for most batches. Both long and short steep ingredients went in at together at the start of the steep for two weeks. This batch will age for 6 months before sampling.
Batch B – The long steep ingredients went in at two weeks, and the short steep ingredients were added four days before straining. The hunch this one tests is that more desirable compounds may come out in the long steep and the short steep could prevent overly harsh bitterness. This batch will age for 6 months too.
Batch C – Made with my newer quick process, the long steep ingredients went in for 48 hours and the short steep had 24 hours before finishing. This batch will also age for 6 months.
Batch D – Not yet made, the intent is an identical batch to C that will be made fresh for tasting. The hunch this one will test is that the quick batches may fall off faster due to less extraction and should be made for fresh consumption.

And now to wait. These will be ready some time in early 2027, when I'll blind taste them side by side and write up impressions. My thought going into this is that the short process leaves a lot of compounds behind that the long process will extract through the extra contact time, but whether those are desirable or not is anyone's guess. If I had to bet I'd say there will be more depth and complexity in the long process due to better extraction – but I also would have expected Batch A to be the harshest when young but it came out the most immediately drinkable of the three, so it's just a guess.

With each batch, I keep aside a small bottle that I can sample from over time and keep the notes here updated as it develops. More when available.

Colamaro

2026-05-25T12:00:00Z

A cola-inspired amaro with lots of fresh citrus zest and an atypical acidic note. Following my standard long base process, this was a riff on a recipe written up in the Amaro Recipe Developer spreadsheet I found via a subreddit.

Base

400mL 50% vodka
150g water
100g refined cane sugar
5g citric acid

Aromatics

20g fresh orange zest
15g fresh lime zest
13g cinnamon
10g fresh lemon zest
8g kola nut
3g vanilla bean
3g bitter orange peel
2g horehound
2g cherry bark
1.5g nutmeg
1g lavender
1g star anise

4 months into ageing the leftover sample bottle is still feeling fairly raw, so this one might take more than the standard 6 months to come into its own.

With each batch, I keep aside a small bottle that I can sample from over time and keep the notes here updated as it develops. More when available.

Spring Blossom Amaro

2026-05-09T12:00:00Z

With the abundance of edible springtime flowers and blossoms around town, I thought it might be worth harvesting and making tinctures out of as many as I could find. After making a simple base amaro using my standard process, I sampled each tincture against the base and took notes on flavours that informed the final blends.

Base

500mL 50% vodka
250g water
150g refined cane sugar

Aromatics

10g sweet orange peel
5g coriander
5g juniper
2g lavender
2g horehound
2g oak
1g fennel seed
1g elderflower
1g cinchona bark
1g wormwood
0.5g cinnamon

In a blending session I mixed the base infusion with some simple syrup and each tincture one by one. I took notes on flavours and how they might work in the final mix:

Cherry blossoms – very aromatic and taste unmistakably comes through. Use sparingly.
Currant blossoms – adds some not distinctively currant candy berry flavour that rounds out harsher notes well.
Dandelion flowers – sarsaparilla candy! Neat.
Fir tips – slightly mutes the piney juniper into a more mellow evergreen, not hugely present on its own. Good accent though.
Lilac flowers – a bit of stewed flower, sarsaparilla with a bit of rose.
Magnolia blossoms – wasn't happy with the tincture so made a syrup instead. Mostly adds sweetness, but mellower than pure sugar.
Red bud blossoms – a little perceptually sweeter aroma, rounded flavour with a hint of peaty vegetal notes.
Spruce tips – there on the nose but subtler taste, citrusy bubblegum cola notes that works well against the juniper.

In the end I decided to split the batch two ways and bottle separately to try and bring out separate notes.

Batch 1

Leaning more toward evergreen and starting with a 205g pour of the base infusion, this was a blend of 60g magnolia syrup, 45g each fir and spruce tinctures, 35g currant, and 25g dandelion.

Batch 2

More blossom-forward, this was also a 205g base infusion starting point with 25g each red bud, lilac, dandelion, magnolia syrup, and cherry blossom with 12g fir tip and currant.

These batches are 4 months into ageing, so should be ready in November.

Amaro-making process

2026-01-10T00:00:00Z

Here's what I know about making amaro. I'm barely a year into this, so: not much yet! But I'll keep this updated as I learn more.

At the moment I have both a long and quick process that I use. I've learned is that time is an ingredient, it's not critical for every batch but the results when you subject an amaro to time are different than when you don't. While I've made multiple batches of each that turned out well, I'm still doing the science to narrow down whether I have a preference between the two.

Steeping

Spirit

Start with a higher-proof neutral grain spirit. Basically you want vodka that punches in at 50% or higher; you can use Everclear, but I understand it comes with its own gotchas so I can't advise on how to modify at that proof.

Botanical selection

Amaro doesn't really have rules, you can use whatever. Rhubarb, orange peel, cardamom, artichoke, it's all fair game. My main suggestion is to favour dehydrated ingredients over fresh. Water content and especially exposure to oxygen can quickly turn volatile aromatics in fresh herbs into some weird green chlorophyll flavours that take a lot of ageing to turn around, so I'm in the habit of dehydrating anything I use before adding it. If you need to use fresh anyway, plan to minimize the amount of contact time – hours, not weeks.

Botanicals additions

Weigh out and record each ingredient if you want a repeatable recipe, but it can be fun to go by feel too if you're up for that. Add them to a storage vessel along with your spirit and steep according to one of these two processes:

Long process – more traditional (I think? Needs citation) process that extracts deeper compounds but takes more time to integrate flavours. Combine all botanicals together at the start, let steep for 2-3 weeks then proceed to finishing.
Short process – this is quicker in that you can turn around something drinkable in a few weeks, less if you skip fining. It will still take the same amount of time to make and bottle as the long process though. Split this one into two additions:
- Addition one – 48 hours. The more delicate aromatics that might need longer to express go in at the start. This can be spices, dried herbs, tinctures, dried fruit, etc.
- Addition two – 24 hours. Whatever your recipe, think about what will introduce the most bitterness: barks, roots, citrus peel, coffee, etc. That goes in later.

Blending

Strain botanicals

Using a fine mesh strainer, strain the spirit into a bowl but reserve the aromatics.

Water boil

Advice I've come across is putting the reserved aromatics back into a pot with 2x your intended final water. Bring that to a boil, then let it steep till cool. Strain again and mix that water with your sugar. This step is optional though, and I'm not yet sure how it affects the final result so I want to try split batches with and without at some point to decide if I want to keep it or not.

Sweeten

Measure out your intended ratios of water and sugar, heat and stir till all sugar is dissolved then immediately remove from heat. Let cool and combine with the reserved spirit, stir well.

Fining

Optionally, you can use fining agents to remove residual sediment. I find that even after being passed through a coffee filter, non-fined amaro ends up with a bottom sediment layer that makes the last pour from the bottle fairly off-putting. Still tastes fine, just isn't pretty.

I'm still narrowing down a precise regiment here, but what seems to be working well is:

First pass: bentonite clay and re-hydrating properly – 4+ hours with 60C degree water before mixing well to combine. I let that sit for a week to drop out as much as possible.
Second pass: sparkalloid, also re-hydrated with warm water 10 minutes. After vigorously stirring in, I let it sit for another until the amaro is see-through and there's a compact sludge layer on the bottom.
- If the amaro doesn't go fully see-through, it's still totally fine. Just use more of each fining agent next time.

Packaging

You can bottle in literally anything, it's a spirit and will preserve well. I like to use 375mL wine bottles with reusable cork stoppers, but whatever you have is good enough. Make sure to clean your bottles, or even better bring them up to a quick boil in a pot of water. It's high enough alcohol that your sanitation doesn't need to be spotless, but just remember that you'll be putting this in your mouth so clean accordingly.

For each bottle, pop in a funnel and pour off the finished amaro, carefully watching the fill level so you don't overflow. Move the bottle aside and repeat until just before the sediment starts pouring out too. At this point you can discard, or if you have a pourover coffee setup you can wet the filter then slowly pass the remaining liquid through to reclaim a bit more. It will drip slower and slower, so be prepared to wait a few hours in total.

Once all bottles are filled, cap and store to age.

Ageing

Age will do a lot to integrate the flavour compounds in any amaro recipe or process, so the longer you can wait before opening the better. I reserve the leftovers from each batch in smaller sampler jars to take notes along the way, and try not to open bottles before I'm happy with the results.

That said, the quick process amaro can be turned around in a week or two so don't think of any of this as a must do. Great amari are subtle, well-balanced mixes of integrated flavours and that's great, but a fresh raw amaro can be spectacular in its own right. The rules here are whatever you want them to be.

And that's about what I know so far. You can read up on past batches I've made in the Amaro log.