How I make my bitter apertif (Campari)

[AppleWood50]

Probably one of my favorite drinks has to be the classic Negroni. After getting into home distillation for my own personal use one of my first goals was to make a great alternative to Campari.

After trying numerous combinations some with over 30 different botanicals I settled on this simple recipe. It's basically 4 ingredients and they are all easily found on Amazon or in local health food stores.

Recipe makes 2 litres

40g gentian root
20g orange peel dried
2 fresh orange peel
1 fresh lemon peel

1.... Add it all to a large jar and combine with 1 litre of 75% neutral spirit.

2.... Either leave to infuse in the jar for 3 weeks or put into a sous vide bath at 72 Celsius for 13 hours. I've made it both ways and they turn out the same.

3.... After leaving for 13 hours in the heated bath or for 3 weeks in the jar. Next strain out the botanicals using a metal sieve (squeezing between hands to get all the liquid out). Next dilute to a safe level for distillation by adding 850ml of water.

4.... Time for distillation. Add all the infused spirit to a pot still (air still is ideal for this) start the run and discard for the first 25ml. This contains lots of oils from the citrus peel. Collect everything after until you get to 700ml. This should be about 70 to 80% ABV.

5.... Next add 300-450g of sugar to the spirit and stir to dissolve. Don't worry if it all doesn't dissolve as you will be adding lots of water. Time for that water... After adding the sugar top up to 2 litres with water.

6.... Campari used to be flavoured using beetles. It's now made commercially by adding red food colouring to the spirit. So we will do the same. Add red food colouring until the desired colour is achieved.

Some notes

You can add lots of other herbs and botanicals in. But personally, just the above recipe gives me something near perfect that matches Campari in taste. Other good things you can experiment with are Ginseng, Wormwood, Cherry Bark, Rhubarb Root, Star Anise, Fennel, Cloves, Grapefruit, Angelica Root, Cassia.

I add 450g of sugar to my bitter apertif. But everyone's different so add your 450g in 100g increments so you can taste each one before adding more.

[StillerBoy]

3.... After leaving for 13 hours in the heated bath or for 3 weeks in the jar. Next strain out the botanicals using a metal sieve. Next dilute to a safe level for distillation by adding 850ml of water.

I'm a fan of pastis, which, base on the description of the process, has many similarities to making pastis..

Question.. I note you macerate in 1L of 70% alcohol, then after straining, add 850ml of water prior to distilling.. have you measured the amount of liquid left after straining, and do you just drain the liquid from the botanicals and discard them, or do you also squeeze them before discarding..

Mars

[Bushman]

Thanks for posting. I moved the thread to recipe development as the Tried & True section has to be suggested by multiple others before posting or moved in the section.

[AppleWood50]

3.... After leaving for 13 hours in the heated bath or for 3 weeks in the jar. Next strain out the botanicals using a metal sieve. Next dilute to a safe level for distillation by adding 850ml of water.

I'm a fan of pastis, which, base on the description of the process, has many similarities to making pastis..

Question.. I note you macerate in 1L of 70% alcohol, then after straining, add 850ml of water prior to distilling.. have you measured the amount of liquid left after straining, and do you just drain the liquid from the botanicals and discard them, or do you also squeeze them before discarding..

Mars

Yes pastis, although being a completely different drink definitely shares the same basic principles for creating. Same for Aperol.

I measure all neutral and strain all neutral into 2 litre flat bottom beakers with ml measurements on the side. After straining (and squeezing) you will lose 10-20ml of contents. Very very little is lost during the filtering stage of this maceration because the recipe uses roots and citrus peels. Neither of which are very absorbent.

The small 10-20ml loss is accounted for in the dilution though and in the 850ml measurement given.

[AppleWood50]

Thanks for posting. I moved the thread to recipe development as the Tried & True section has to be suggested by multiple others before posting or moved in the section.

Apologies Bushman, being the first recipe I've posted I wasn't 100 percent sure how it worked.

I'll make sure to post in this section in future. Thanks for letting me know!

[StillerBoy]

I measure all neutral and strain all neutral into 2 litre flat bottom beakers with ml measurements on the side. After straining (and squeezing) you will lose 10-20ml of contents. Very very little is lost during the filtering stage of this maceration because the recipe uses roots and citrus peels. Neither of which are very absorbent

Thanks AW for the feed back.. it's on my to do list in the near future..

Mars

[Cordial_Culture]

Hi All,
I'm hoping someone can provide some feedback on my first "aperitivo" run...

Here's what I put together, inspired by the original post above...
80g Gentain
11g Bergamont peel dried
40g Bitter orange peel dried (citrus Aurantium)
40g Orange pee dried (citrus Sinensis)
3g Orris root
5g Angelica root
5g Cinnamon chips (Cinnamomus Verum)
1g Star Anise
2g Licorice root dry & chopped
150g fresh Rhubarb

I combined the ingredients above with 2.5L 170p (from 190p neutral spirits and a little left over white Rum I made a while back) and 4.542L H2O for a total volume of 6.922L at 30% ABV

I then ran this through a 1L capacity Soxhlet extractor setup for five cycles until the liquid was essentially clear.
I then added an additional 633g of fresh Rhubarb and distilled the whole batch taking 100ml fractions every 5-11 min.
I tossed the first 30ml and during the run I reduced power for awhile to slow the distillation in the middle of the run to see if I could get a slightly higher proof. I'm running a direct fired pot still with a 3" wide, 48" tall packed column. Total run time was a little over two hours and I collected just about 1.5L of finished product at 166p, I separated the last 400ml of the run at 80p Overall I'm pretty happy with the result though it's significantly less bitter than Campari.

My question is, does this yield and finished proof sound about right? Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. I'm really enjoying all of the great information being shared on this site!

With Gratitude,
Cordial_Culture.

[AppleWood50]

Hi All,
I'm hoping someone can provide some feedback on my first "aperitivo" run...

Here's what I put together, inspired by the original post above...
80g Gentain
11g Bergamont peel dried
40g Bitter orange peel dried (citrus Aurantium)
40g Orange pee dried (citrus Sinensis)
3g Orris root
5g Angelica root
5g Cinnamon chips (Cinnamomus Verum)
1g Star Anise
2g Licorice root dry & chopped
150g fresh Rhubarb

I combined the ingredients above with 2.5L 170p (from 190p neutral spirits and a little left over white Rum I made a while back) and 4.542L H2O for a total volume of 6.922L at 30% ABV

I then ran this through a 1L capacity Soxhlet extractor setup for five cycles until the liquid was essentially clear.
I then added an additional 633g of fresh Rhubarb and distilled the whole batch taking 100ml fractions every 5-11 min.
I tossed the first 30ml and during the run I reduced power for awhile to slow the distillation in the middle of the run to see if I could get a slightly higher proof. I'm running a direct fired pot still with a 3" wide, 48" tall packed column. Total run time was a little over two hours and I collected just about 1.5L of finished product at 166p, I separated the last 400ml of the run at 80p Overall I'm pretty happy with the result though it's significantly less bitter than Campari.

My question is, does this yield and finished proof sound about right? Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. I'm really enjoying all of the great information being shared on this site!

With Gratitude,
Cordial_Culture.

I think the problem here is that you ran through a packed reflux still which will be removing the flavours and bitter notes.

Spirits like this should be distilled straight on a pot still. To carry all them flavours over.

[StillerBoy]

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result though it's significantly less bitter than Campari.

That's what is important, the overall finished product..

It's a much different method than the author of the thread, and how I do pastis, which the method are similar, just the botanical are different..

As to the total amount collected, on the pastis I make, from 6L batch, I'll collect just under 2L of finish product at 55% (110p)..

And I don't do any cuts, collect down until the overall ABV is 55%.. macerate for 5 day in 95%, dilute to 30% and macerate another 5 days, then filter and run it in a small pot setup..

Mars

[AppleWood50]

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result though it's significantly less bitter than Campari.

That's what is important, the overall finished product..

It's a much different method than the author of the thread, and how I do pastis, which the method are similar, just the botanical are different..

As to the total amount collected, on the pastis I make, from 6L batch, I'll collect just under 2L of finish product at 55% (110p)..

And I don't do any cuts, collect down until the overall ABV is 55%.. macerate for 5 day in 95%, dilute to 30% and macerate another 5 days, then filter and run it in a small pot setup..

Mars

What Mars said here really. This is exactly right. When you make even the slightest change in distillation that will often have a huge change in the overall process and or product. Small changes give big changes down the line. That can be a good or a bad thing.

With the original recipe here I made numerous test batches. 10+ with different methods, botanicals and quantities before I settled on the method posted here. When you change the botanicals it WILL change the finished product and not always for the better. E.g add a bunch of rhubarb and you may have to increase or decrease the bittering agents to achieve the same overall taste profile at the end.

For example, I found that when I added Ginseng and Elderflower, I had to increase the Gentian root by around 20% to achieve the same finished bitterness of Campari.

When I added wormwood, the finished product increased significantly in bitterness and in turn I had to reduce the Gentian and bitter orange peel.

The quantities listed along with the method here will give you a spirit very close to campari. Change things up and you'll have to experiment to achieve that same end result.

I still stand by my post earlier today though. Using a packed column is simply NOT the correct rig for the job. We want to add flavour to the spirit not remove it. The simplest of simple pot stills work great for this. Half the time I can't be bothered setting up water for this so I just use my air still. Works great because it carries all them flavors over.

Btw Mars, did you ever post your pastis method on here? I'd love to check it out sometime!

[The Baker]

Bitter spirits are definitely an acquired taste!

I can't handle them.

Geoff

[vagabondmountainman]

Thanks for this recipe Applewood. I've been looking for a good Campari clone for a long time. I have a batch of this infusing in the garage and am excited to run it next week. One question--have you tried distilling in a pot still with the herbs/botanicals still in the mixture? I do gin this way in a copper alembic and it eliminates the need for the long infusion time. I'm also wondering if it would possibly reduce the amount of botanicals needed as well.

[kiwipete]

Ditto: Thanks for the recipe Applewood. In response to the reply from vagabondmountainman: I ground the Gentian root in the spice grinder, macerated everything in a liter of 75% neutral for 24 hours and chucked everything in my Airstill. Came out fine i.e. no scorching. Have added the sugar (300 grammes) and water to make it to a final strength of 28%.

One thing though: Upon mixing the distillate, water and sugar together, it did go cloudy (louching). I know its only early days (I literally mixed it up an hour ago) so will let it sit for some time, hoping it will clear. Does anybody else have experience with it louching and what can be done to prevent it?

[tjsc5f]

Does anybody else have experience with it louching and what can be done to prevent it?

By distilling with all of the botanicals in the pot, you probably extracted more oils than with the OP's method.

You could "dilute" your product down with high proof neutral spirit to get it to clear up.

[LordL]

I could have sworn on Campari having wormwood in it!

The more you know!

[sweeps]

I could have sworn on Campari having wormwood in it!

This is more of a Campari-inspired drink, rather than an attempt at a clone. Campari uses more than 60 different botanicals, but the recipe is kept secret. The only botanical they confim is in there is bitter orange, but wormwood is a likely ingredient. They are less secretive about their production process:

https://www.alcademics.com/2018/08/camp ... ining.html

[LordL]

I could have sworn on Campari having wormwood in it!

This is more of a Campari-inspired drink, rather than an attempt at a clone. Campari uses more than 60 different botanicals, but the recipe is kept secret. The only botanical they confim is in there is bitter orange, but wormwood is a likely ingredient. They are less secretive about their production process:

https://www.alcademics.com/2018/08/camp ... ining.html

Thanks! Interesting read!

[tevzi]

hey
I tried a recipe with gentian root - I added also artichoke leaves and angelica, macerated for 3 weeks, then distilled with pot still, but it seems that bitter compunouds don't distill in my case (the distill temperature of pot from 80-90 C degrees). I got nice smelling alchocol around 74 ABS, but no bitternes. I then infused gentian, arhicoke and angelica and added to alcholol to macerate for a week to add bitternes... Any comments where I did wrong?

One more question, do you use regular or bitter orange peel in your recipe ? thanks in advance

[NZChris]

The Google Search in the light blue bar above should find anything that has already been posted.

I haven't make a Campari clone yet, but if I do, I will use bitter orange because I've seen them recommended, plus I have planted a tree. The first harvest has already been used for gin.

[tevzi]

Maybe bitterness from bitter orange is carried through destillation. I have to try that, I will buy one planted tree myself, thanks for the idea!