Sound & Colour – Adriatico Roasted Almonds

Of course, there are a lot of Amarettos out there. After all, it probably is the Italian liqueur. However, most of them are overpowered by marzipan notes. In the case of the Adriatico Roasted Almond, things look a bit different. This modern approach to amaretto only uses natural ingredients and less sugar than others.

The Adriatico Roasted Almonds uses hand-picked “Filippo Cea” almonds from Puglia. After the harvest, the almonds are roasted, macerated and distilled on a pot-still. Apart from that, Adriatico adds cacao, coffee, cinnamon and vanilla to the amaretto. In the end, sugar (50 % less than regular amaretto) and a little sea salt from the Adriatic sea complete the recipe.

Salted almonds

In the aroma of the Adriatico Roasted Almonds you will find familiar amaretto notes. It has a pronounced marzipan note. Yet, in the taste things look a bit different. You will find a lot of almonds, with just a few hints of marzipan. Moreover, the Adriatico carries a slight perfumed note and you can actually taste the sea salt in the flavour. I enjoyed this amaretto very much and I can confirm that it is not as sweet as other amaretto liqueurs out there.

Not your average Amaretto Sour

For a drink using the Adriatico, I combined an Amaretto Sour with the Continental Sour. However, instead of whiskey as a base spirit I went for a low-ABV version and replaced it with the port wine instead of floating the drink with it. Furthermore, I added complexity in the form of the Fee Brother’s Whiskey Barrel Bitters and cinnamon syrup. Since I am a fan of aqua faba for adding foam in cocktails, I used it instead of egg white.

The funny thing is, that the “Sound & Colour” clearly evokes the memories of the two cocktails it is based on. You get a lot of port wine notes, reminiscent of the Continental Sour, but at the same time there also is a distinct almond note. Additionally, the slight salinity of the Adriatico even is noticeable in the final drink. In the end, you can taste quite a lot of cinnamon notes which work very well with the rest of the drink’s flavours.

White Amaretto?

Adriatico also makes another Amaretto version they call “Crushed Almonds”. It uses the same almonds from Puglia, but for the Amaretto Bianco they are not roasted. Besides that, Adriatico adds vanilla and almond milk to the liqueur. In the end, it is bottled at 16 % ABV. Below you can find my tasting notes for the Crushed Almonds.

*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The amarettos were provided by Perola.