"Cocchi Americano is an aperitif wine hailing from Italy's Piedmont region," explains Toronto-based bar consultant Juliana Wolkowski. The brand itself launched in 1891, and the recipe calls for a base of white wine fortified with alcohol then, "macerated with botanicals, including gentian, cinchona, bitter orange peel, rhubarb, juniper, coriander, rose and mace."
Matt Reysen, the bar director at NYC's Al Coro, gets a lot of chamomile, apple, and pear from Cocchi. "It has fruity, citrus-driven notes accompanied by spice, with a lightly bitter backbone — Americano actually refers to the Italian word 'Americante', which means bittered."
"It has an amazing balance of sweet, bitter, and herbal with a nice lift from the acidity in the wine," explains McLain Hedges, co-owner of Yacht Club in Denver. "It's full of white flowers and citrus, yet has enough herbaceousness and alcoholic structure to give it the ability to play well across the board in any number of cocktails. It's the perfect representation of power and finesse."