Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti is a reddish-brown digestive bitters.
It is mid-range in bitterness in terms of Italian bitters, and relatively smooth. It has a sweet medicinal taste with notes of orange and vanilla.
The ingredients are secret, but the manufacturer says that there are 33 ingredients, including gentian, cinchona tree bark, rhubarb, cinnamon, oregano, sweet oranges from Sicily and bitter orange from Curaçao. It is 30% alcohol.
Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti Bitters can be drunk straight up, on ice, or with water and a slice of orange.
In Italy, it is sold in bottle sizes of 30ml, 700ml, 1 litre and 1.5 litres.
There is also a mint version, which is 32% alcohol. It is called “Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti Menta”, and has a green label on the bottle, and a green cap.
Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti Bitters is still strongly associated with Milano, though now it’s not actually even made in Lombardy.
History Notes
Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti Bitters was first made in Milan in 1815, created by Ausano Ramazzotti. He started with a small store that sold wine, liqueurs, and pharmaceutical herbs. He decided to create a tonic that would incorporate the herbs, and began selling the mixture to taverns. He set up a public location selling the tonic near the Scala in Milan, and set up a production plant in the centre of town
The manufacturing buildings were destroyed by bombing in 1943; the company had to rebuild.
1969 – The company opened its first foreign plant in Switzerland.
1970 – The company opened a plant in Cologne, Germany.
1971 – The company opened new manufacturing complexes in Milan outside the city, to give them more room.
1985 – The company was sold to the Pernod Ricard group.
1995 – Production was moved out of Lombardy entirely, and transferred to Canelli, a town in the province of Asti in the region of Piedmont.
Amaro Felsina Ramazzotti experienced a surge of trendiness in the 1980s, which no doubt helped to boost the company’s appeal for its 1985 sale to Pernod Ricard.