Skip to content

Top Navigation

Food & Wine Food & Wine
  • Recipes & Cooking
  • Drinks
  • Travel
  • Holidays & Events
  • News
  • F&W Classic
  • Video
  • Kitchen & Home
  • F&W Pro

Profile Menu

Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Wine Club
  • Podcast
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Food & Wine

Food & Wine Food & Wine
  • Explore

    Explore

    • F&W Cooks

      Food and Wine presents a new network of food pros delivering the most cookable recipes and delicious ideas online. Read More Next
    • Our 22 Best Crock Pot and Slow-Cooker Recipes

      Looking to amp up your beef stew but unsure where to start? A slow cooker can can take your comfort food to the next level. Read More Next
    • 50 Affordable Wines You Can Always Trust

      We’ve assembled a list of 50 of the world’s most reliable, inexpensive wines – bottles that offer amazing quality for their price year in and year out. Read More Next
  • Recipes & Cooking

    Recipes & Cooking

    See All Recipes & Cooking
    • Chicken Recipes
    • Comfort Food Recipes
    • Breakfast & Brunch Recipes
    • Salad Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
    • Vegetable Recipes
    • Pasta & Noodle Recipes
    • Chefs
    • Meat & Poultry Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Appetizer Recipes
    • Side Dishes
    • Fruit Recipes
    • Seafood Recipes
    • Special Diets
    • Cooking Techniques
    • Steal This Trick
  • Drinks

    Drinks

    See All Drinks
    • Wine
    • Cocktails & Spirits
    • Coffee Drinks & Recipes
    • Juices
    • Beer & Brews
    • Champagne & Sparkling Wine
    • Tea Recipes & Ideas
  • Travel

    Travel

    See All Travel
    • Wine Regions
    • Restaurants
  • Holidays & Events

    Holidays & Events

    See All Holidays & Events
    • Valentine's Day
    • Halloween
    • Passover
    • Hanukkah
    • Christmas
    • Gifts
    • Super Bowl
    • Easter
    • Thanksgiving
    • New Year's Eve
    • Holiday Entertaining
  • News
  • F&W Classic
  • Video
  • Kitchen & Home
  • F&W Pro

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Profile

Your Profile

  • Join Now
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Wine Club
  • Podcast
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home Chevron Right
  2. Drinks Chevron Right
  3. 5 Small-Batch Aperitifs You Should Seek Out This Summer

5 Small-Batch Aperitifs You Should Seek Out This Summer

By Food & Wine
Updated July 17, 2015
Skip gallery slides
Save FB Tweet
Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com
Consider the aperitif a liquid wakeup call for your stomach and spirits. The European tradition of prefacing a meal with a well-chilled, appetite-teasing beverage continues to catch on in the States. And for good reason.Overseas, aperitifs like Lillet and Campari are classic starting points, but American offerings have recently been eager to catch up. Small-batch makers from all around the country are bottling new ways to stimulate the palate with hand-harvested botanicals and seasonal fruit. Some are easy-drinking on their own, simply chilled; others require only a splash of soda water and ice. All of them are proudly local—and begging to give your summer aperitif a fresh perspective.This article originally appeared on Liquor.com. 
Start Slideshow

1 of 5

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Uncouth Vermouth Apple Mint ($35)

Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com

Your first impression of Uncouth Vermouth? The bottle, emblazoned with a silhouette of a woman sticking a finger up her nose. Bianca Miraglia is the one-woman band behind these hyperlocal vermouths, which feature mugwort and dozens of other wild herbs she forages herself. A former sommelier, Miraglia steers clear of added sugar, preferring to start with a sweet wine base and then fortify them with good brandy. Her seasonal bottles of Serrano Chile Lavender, Wildflower and Hops vermouth are all exceptional, but her year-round Apple Mint (an aromatic herb) made with Long Island Chardonnay is endlessly drinkable on its own. It’s bracingly dry and crisp when chilled.

1 of 5

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 5

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Bittermens Citron Sauvage ($24)

Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com

Sporting summery vibes right down to the beachy bottle illustration, Citron Sauvage is currently one of Bittermens’ most popular liqueurs. The reason? Think triple sec that’s gone grapefruit. A pleasantly bitter grapefruit aperitif “in the Milanese style,” the pink liqueur makes a tart substitute for triple sec in a Margarita. Swap it for Campari and you’ll turn the Negroni on its head, or splash it into summer spritzes and Hemingway Daiquiris by the pool.

2 of 5

3 of 5

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Orleans Bitter Aperitif Cider ($30)

Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com

Appleheads, there’s an aperitif for you too. Eden Ice Cider Company makes a dry, bitter aperitif cider that will happily replace your bottle of Campari. Made with Vermont-grown apples and no added sugar, the base ice cider is infused with whole red currants and blended with dandelion, gentian and angelica bitters from Urban Moonshine in Burlington, Vermont. It’s earthy, aromatic and eager to plunge into your Americanos and Manhattans—or even a simple glass of sparkling water and ice.

3 of 5

Advertisement

4 of 5

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Tuthilltown Cassis Liqueur ($24)

Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com

Ready to start your aperitif hour in quaint French style? Look to upstate New York, where Tuthilltown Spirits creates a cassis using organic local black currants grown at Fishkill Farms. The hand-harvested fruit is macerated with raw cane sugar in neutral spirit and aged inside Tuthilltown Whiskey barrels. Lightly toasted raspberry and honey notes lead into a velvety finish of dark berry, and because the liqueur uses no preservatives, its character will evolve over the life of the bottle. Roll out the bubbly to explore the liqueur’s applications in a summery Kir Royale.

4 of 5

5 of 5

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Americanaki Ouzo ($20)

Credit: Courtesy of Liquor.com

American-made ouzo? Don’t despair, ye of hearty Greek heritage. Old Sugar Distillery’s founder is of Greek descent, and his product is a worthy reincarnation of the classic spirit. Made from a mash of locally-grown beet sugar, Old Sugar’s spirit is first infused with star anise and aniseed, redistilled, then infused a second time with more star anise. The ouzo emerges at a muscular 90 proof, yet remains smooth and subtly spicy. Serve it neat with a splash of ice water for dilution or try it as the rinse in a Sazerac bearing a bit of Greek pride.

5 of 5

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Food & Wine

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Trending Videos
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 5 Uncouth Vermouth Apple Mint ($35)
2 of 5 Bittermens Citron Sauvage ($24)
3 of 5 Orleans Bitter Aperitif Cider ($30)
4 of 5 Tuthilltown Cassis Liqueur ($24)
5 of 5 Americanaki Ouzo ($20)

Share options

Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Login

Food & Wine

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Books from Food & Wine
  • Contact Us
  • Media Kit
  • Content Licensing

Connect

Follow Us
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • Parents this link opens in a new tab
  • People this link opens in a new tab
  • People en Español this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
  • Travel & Leisure this link opens in a new tab
Food & Wine is part of the Meredith Corporation Allrecipes Food Group. © Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.foodandwine.com

View image

5 Small-Batch Aperitifs You Should Seek Out This Summer
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.