About Amaro Salento

Around the middle of the last century, the homemade production of various liqueurs and rosolios was a common activity in Salento, in a rural world where the purchase of distilled spirits was unknown to most. In some bars, it was possible to taste, in particular, bitter liqueurs handcrafted from the maceration of native herbs and roots, mainly used to extend and "correct" coffee. Realino Mazzotta, creator of Amaro Salento out of passion, recalls that as a child in his father Raffaele's bar Venezia in Veglie, in the province of Lecce, there was an herbal liqueur whose recipe unfortunately left no written or oral trace. Bar Venezia was founded in the 1940s while his father Raffaele continued to craft high-quality furniture and artifacts in his grandfather Luigi's workshop. Among the many childhood stories, Realino remembers that "corrected" coffee, extended with the bitter liqueur so loved by Americans.Read their story