Averna Amaro Review

Averna is a complex yet approachable amaro with just the right balance of sweetness and bitterness. Its sweet, spicy, and bitter flavors of lemon, bitter orange, star anise, pomegranate, and vanilla bean promise to please a variety of palates.

Tasting Notes

Color: Deep, concentrated mahogany-brown

Nose: Complex and thoroughly intriguing, the aromatics on Averna kick off with vanilla-laced licorice, then open up into a garden of herbs such as rosemary, mint, and sage. You’ll sense bright notes of citrus zest, too.

Palate: Mouthfilling and silky, Averna is both sweet and spicy from the minute it hits your tongue. A bitter orange and lemon zip hums alongside dark cocoa, tart pomegranate, star anise, vanilla bean, and cinnamon notes. 

Finish: The sweetness lingers, but it’s laced with a savory, bitter bite. 

Our Review

Averna is a classic for a reason: It was Sicily’s first licensed spirit. In 1868, a local monk gifted textile merchant, Don Salvatore Averna, with the recipe, which included botanicals sourced right from his abbey’s grounds. Averna began producing and bottling his namesake amaro, passing it down through his family for more than 150 years. The proprietary 60-ingredient recipe includes bitter orange and lemon (the signature citrus of the region), juniper, mint, rosemary, sage, myrtle, licorice, and pomegranate, which are infused with alcohol to draw out the right concentration of flavors. Today, the resulting amaro is ubiquitous in bars and households in southern Italy, and has become one of the country’s best-known amari exports. 

Some like to call Averna a gateway amaro—the one that first lures you into this herbaceous, bitter genre of liqueurs—but we’d argue that title goes to the sweeter, lighter Amaro Montenegro. Averna is darker, richer, and a bit more bitter. And it’s certainly complex, thanks to 60 herbs, roots, fruits, and spices. There’s a requisite liqueur sweetness, but it intertwines with sticky licorice, sage, and vanilla bean notes, as well as the sweet-tart, bright influence of pomegranate, giving Averna layers of flavor. 

Averna’s silky mouthfeel and distinct cola flavor profile are perfect over ice, sipped neat with a twist, or added to a highball. But the amaro’s bittersweet notes also make it the perfect addition to a Black Manhattan, where Averna replaces sweet vermouth for a darker and more intense rendition of the classic.