rosolio is one of the oldest herbal liqueurs, dating back to the 1400s and, in Italy, still being made today. Originally, its botanical mix was centered on the sundew (ros solis in Latin), a name applied to several related members of the Rosolio was being made in northeastern Italy by the mid-1400s, when it was being regularly shipped from Venice (as aqua ruoxa in the local dialect) to the Duke of Burgundy and the court of Edward IV of England. It soon became one of the standard formulae drawn on by European distillers. Over the centuries, however, that formula changed greatly. The Drosera were out, replaced by saffron, which gave the same golden color to the liqueur but was much easier to handle, and the many botanicals used tended toward the spice end of the spectrum. Eventually, the term became a generic one in Italian distilling (elsewhere it had died out entirely). It was, as the liquorista Pietro Valsecchi noted in 1857, applied to any mild, sugary liqueur. Citrus was the most popular genus of flavoring, and most of the more pungent spices—the cinnamons, nutmegs, and such—were reduced to mere accents, replaced by things such as fennel and rose petals. For most of the twentieth century, Rosolio was considered the sort of thing your grandmother sipped. And yet small distillers in Turin and in Sicily and southern Italy continued to make it, in small quantities. With the twenty-first-century revival in interest in traditional spirits, it was inevitable that rosolio would get another look. In 2016, the Amalfi-born international barman Giuseppe Gallo (1980–) launched the Italicus brand of bergamot-flavored rosolio, to immediate acclaim. Difford, Simon. “Rosolio: The Italian Liqueur.” Difford’s Guide. https://www.diffordsguide.com/beer-wine-spirits/category/1194/bergamot-liqueurs (accessed March 31, 2021). Valsecchi, Pietro. Nuovo ed unico manuale completo del distillatore-liquorista. Milan: Sanvito, 1857. Vicario, Renato. Italian Liqueurs. N.p.: Aboca, 2014. By: David Wondrich
