5 days into my Solera Amaro Project, I have finished drinking my first small bottle, which I am calling fill #1. (I would have finished it 4 days ago, but I thought I should try at least a bit of self control.) It is now time to transfer half of the large bottle, which currently contains fill #2, into the small bottle and replenish the large bottle, thus creating fill #3. As part of the process, I must compare fill #1 against fill #2, and decide what to change for fill #3.

Fill #1

As I said before, the Fernet Leopold dominates. After the initial aloe and menthol shock, there is a slight chocolaty note, followed a by a mild dry sensation on the tongue.

Fill #2

Sweeter than fill #1, but there's still a bit of Fernet. I'd like to maintain this level of menthol, but maybe bring back some more bitterness. I don't taste much Cynar, which is not acceptable in any drink, let alone this one.

Fill #3 Additions

• 1 oz Fernet Vittone
• 1 oz Suze
• 4 oz Campari
• 2 oz Gabriello
• 1 oz Genepy
• 1 oz Cynar
• 2 oz Cynar 70
• 4 oz Ramazzotti

I was hesitant to use the Vittone (I got it for about %60 off retail, and the regular price is just on the edge of affordable) but all sacrifices are worth while in the name of drunken science.

The Cynar 70 serves two purposes. First, I wanted to turbo-boost the Cynar content of the amaro, and second, I ran out of standard Cynar.

The Ramazzotti makes an excellent neutral filler, as far as amari go. It's also cheap, and I buy lots of it for Amer DeHainaut anyway. I expect to use quite a lot of it for this project.

The others additions are more less intuition based. Stay tuned to find out whether that intuition is any good.