The makers of Suncliffe gin reveal a bitter truth with their new Cultivaro liqueur.
Arizona gin makers Ryan Lawrence and Thomas Giddings traveled to Italy a few years ago and found one particular product much to their liking. Hint: It wasn’t pomodoro sauce. “We fell in love with amaro,” Giddings clarifies – a not unexpected outcome, given the couple’s fondness for terroir. Local botanical sourcing was the impetus for Suncliffe, the Arizona gin they launched during the pandemic, made with handpicked Sedona juniper berries; and is the historical backbone of amaro, an alternately bitter and sweet Italian digestif, made thousands of different ways depending on what the earth provides. “What struck us was how deeply regional it felt, every producer telling the story of their landscape through local botanicals,” Giddings says. “That felt very central to what we were already doing with the gin.” Returning home, the aspiring amaro makers surveyed the Arizona landscape and got to work.
Looking to capture Arizona in a bottle, the distillers collected nopales from Tucson; Seville orange peels from Arcadia; toasted pecans from Holy Trinity Monastery in St. David; and ponderosa pine bark from Flagstaff. For sweetness and body, they sourced ultra-ripe Medjool dates from Yuma.
Rounding out the botanical bill with lavender, spearmint and rose, the distillers macerated (read: steeped) each ingredient individually in non-GMO corn-grain alcohol. “Depending on the ingredient, maceration runs anywhere from two to four weeks.”
Settling on the name Cultivaro, Lawrence and Giddings found a ratio mixture that suited them, blended the steeped liquid and bottled it in a distinctive yellow-bottomed vessel mirroring Suncliffe.
In your glass: a rich but balanced liqueur that resides somewhere between medium amaro classics such as Montenegro and super-bitter Fernets. “It’s just genuinely unlike anything we’ve tasted… something we keep hearing from customers and bartenders unprompted.” Enjoy it neat with lemon or use it to make a killer Black Negroni.
$35
Cultivaro Amaro
Available at AJ’s, Total Wine and Trevor’s Liquor
cultivaroamaro.com
Beer of the Month: Chestnut Sports Club Light Citrus Lager
Light American Lager/3.7% ABV/20 IBU
Weighing in at a mere 90 calories per can, with an ABV lower than Benadryl and stately packaging that would look right at home on the greens of Augusta National, this easy-drinker fully delivers on its “playable beer” premise – i.e. you can drink it (a lot of it!) while playing golf, pickleball, tennis or anything else that requires you to remain balanced and upright. Brewed under contract by Huss Brewing Co., the Valley-based beer has one other virtue: It actually tastes pretty good, with pleasant texture and citrus bite. The play’s the thing, after all. Available at Sprouts and fine beer stores. chestnutsportsclub.com
