Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro di Serravalle Italian Herbal Amaro 750ml

The story of the Antico Amaro di Serravalle begins not in a distillery but in the field hospitals of India, in the 1700s, where a Capuchin friar named Vincislao developed a medicinal herbal elixir to treat cholera epidemics. How that recipe traveled from India to Sicily, from Sicily to Piedmont, and from a Capuchin monk's medicine cabinet into Lorenzo Inga's handwritten family recipe book is the kind of provenance story that most amaro producers would invent if it weren't already true. The Inga family did not invent it. It happened.

The family's distilling tradition began in Noto, Sicily in 1832 — where Gaetano Inga, Lorenzo's great-grandfather, built a business producing wines, Marsala, and liqueurs. When the family relocated north to Serravalle Scrivia in Piedmont in the early 20th century, Gaetano purchased and renovated the Gambarotta distillery — a small Piedmontese liqueur factory that became under his stewardship a renowned regional distillery producing Libarna grappa and Gambarotta amaro. Among the formulas in the handwritten Inga recipe book, he found the Capuchin friar's elixir — and recognized it as something worth making. The family has been making it since, for five generations, at the same Serravalle Scrivia facility.

The Antico Amaro di Serravalle won First Prize at the National Expo in Turin in 1898 — the most prestigious industrial exhibition in 19th-century Italy, whose recognition carries the weight of a competition that predates every modern spirits award program by over a century. The recipe has not changed. More than 22 herbs, roots, and tree barks, mixed in proportions that the Inga family guards as a proprietary secret, infused in alcohol and water for a minimum of two months. The result is black, spicy, ethereal, velvety, and harmonious. The oldest and most traveled amaro recipe in the Blackwell's portfolio.

Origins & Craftsmanship

The Lorenzo Inga distillery operates from Serravalle Scrivia in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy — a small town in the Alessandria province at the confluence of the Scrivia and Lemme rivers, between Genova and Milan on the ancient Via Postumia. The Inga family arrived here in the early 20th century when Gaetano Inga relocated from Noto, Sicily — where the family had been producing wines, Marsala, and liqueurs since 1832 — and purchased the Gambarotta distillery on Serravalle's historic Via Gavi. The distillery's name changed; the commitment to quality did not.

The Lorenzo Inga Selection — today's brand encompassing the Antico Amaro di Serravalle, My Grappa, Limoncello, Arancello, and Amaretto — represents the fifth generation of the Inga family's distilling tradition. Lorenzo Inga himself inherited both the distillery and the handwritten recipe book in which Gaetano had preserved the family's most valued formulas — including the Capuchin friar Vincislao's 18th-century herbal elixir that forms the basis of the Antico Amaro.

The production of the Antico Amaro is artisanal and unhurried. More than 22 herbs, roots, and tree barks — the exact formula unpublished but confirmed to include the combination of spicy, stimulating, and ethereal botanicals that the Drinks & Co tasting note captures — are measured and combined in the correct proportions before being infused in alcohol and water for a minimum of two months. The extended maceration period is non-negotiable: the Inga family's protocol specifically requires at least two months of infusion for the full botanical complexity to transfer into the liquid, a patience that shorter commercial infusion periods cannot replicate. The finished amaro is black in color — the dark botanical intensity of the bark and root infusion producing a color depth that only the most traditionally produced amari achieve — and bottled at 30% ABV.

Critics Reviews

No widely published numeric scores from major spirits publications are available for the Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro di Serravalle. The expression's standing is built on its historical credentials — First Prize at the National Expo in Turin 1898, the oldest continuously produced amaro recipe in the Lorenzo Inga portfolio, and five generations of unbroken family production at the Serravalle Scrivia distillery.

Drinks & Co official tasting notes: "Color: black. Flavour: spicy, stimulating and ethereal aromas. Taste: tasty, spicy and strong, in general, velvety and harmonious."

57th Street Wines (House of Glunz importer notes): "An artisanal product made up of more than 22 herbs, roots and barks mixed together in the right proportions and infused in alcohol and water for at least two months."

Tasting Profile

Nose Deep black in color — the extended two-month botanical infusion's most visually dramatic contribution, producing a darkness that signals the concentration and complexity within. The nose is spicy, stimulating, and ethereal in the specific combination that the Drinks & Co note captures: aromatic herbs and roots contributing warm spice alongside a lighter, more volatile floral and medicinal dimension that the word "ethereal" most accurately describes. The bark components add a slightly woody, resinous depth — medicinal, slightly camphor-adjacent, and deeply evocative of the Capuchin pharmacopoeia from which this recipe originally emerged. A sweetness underlies the whole botanical complexity — the sugar and water infusion base providing a measured counterweight to the herbal intensity. The aromatics are complex, layered, and genuinely ancient in character — this smells like a recipe that predates the modern amaro category because it does.

Palate Tasty, spicy, and strong — the official description's most honest characterization, confirmed in a palate of genuine herbal intensity at 30% ABV. The botanical complexity arrives with force: multiple herb and root layers distinguishable beneath the overall amaro bitterness, each contributing its individual dimension before settling into the velvety, harmonious whole that repeated infusion and the Inga family's proportional expertise produces. The bitterness is present and intentional — this is a traditional Italian amaro whose herbal medicine heritage is entirely unmodified for modern commercial palatability — but it is balanced by the sweetness, the spice, and the ethereal quality that prevent it from becoming simply austere. A warming, slightly medicinal finish follows the initial bold bitterness in a combination that the human body recognizes as genuinely restorative — the digestivo function that amaro was developed to serve, alive and undiminished in this recipe.

Finish Long, warming, and spiced. The herbal complexity carries the close with genuine persistence — the bark and root compounds lingering beyond the initial herbal sharpness as the finish resolves into a warm, velvety, slightly sweet close that is entirely characteristic of a two-month infusion's depth. A final ethereal quality persists at the very end before the whole experience fades into the warmth that makes amaro the natural conclusion to any serious Italian meal.

Quick Overview

Serving & Occasion

Serve neat at room temperature in a small digestivo glass or a rocks glass — the traditional Italian after-dinner digestivo serve that the Inga family recommends and that the recipe was specifically designed for. A single large ice cube dilutes the intensity into something more approachable for the first-time amaro drinker without masking the botanical complexity. With soda water it becomes a refreshing long drink with the herbal bitterness and spice carrying through the carbonation in a combination that works equally well as an aperitivo. The Antico Amaro di Serravalle is, as its origin story suggests, equally at home concluding a formal dinner as it is accompanying grilled meats, aged cheeses, or dark chocolate — the herbal bitterness stimulating digestion and the ethereal botanical complexity providing the contemplative pleasure that a genuinely ancient recipe delivers.

Cocktail Suggestions

Serravalle Negroni 1 oz Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro · 1 oz gin · 1 oz sweet vermouth · orange twist. Stirred over ice, served in a rocks glass. The amaro replaces or supplements Campari in a Negroni of unusual botanical depth — the 22+ herb complexity adding layers of spiced, ethereal bitterness that the standard Campari formula approaches from a different aromatic register entirely.

Black Manhattan 2 oz rye whiskey · 1 oz Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro · 2 dashes Angostura bitters · Luxardo cherry. Stirred over ice, served up. The amaro replaces sweet vermouth in the Manhattan format — the herbal complexity and spiced bitterness bridging the rye's natural spice character in a cocktail of considerable depth and Italian character.

Amaro Spritz 1.5 oz Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro · chilled Prosecco · splash of soda · orange slice. Built over ice in a wine glass. The botanical bitterness plays naturally against Prosecco's gentle sweetness and carbonation — a refreshing, herbally complex aperitivo that showcases the Capuchin recipe's most immediately accessible qualities.

Digestivo Sour 1.5 oz Lorenzo Inga Antico Amaro · ¾ oz fresh lemon juice · ½ oz honey syrup. Shaken over ice, served up or over ice. The honey mirrors the sweetness base of the infusion — lemon provides the citrus brightness — and the amaro's herbal complexity produces a sour of unusual depth and bitterness balance.