Tales of the Cocktail® New Orleans 2016

Amaro, perhaps the hottest category in mixology right now, is a mansion with many rooms and one of those (almost forgotten) rooms contains the category of Ferrochina. These are china (cinchona) amaros originally created as medicinal tonics, and fortified with iron citrate. Generations of Italians grew up being fed a teaspoon of ferrochina for their health, and as a handy benefit, the iron citrate gives a delicious citrus edge to the amaro. Join Fulvio Piccinino, author of "Futurist Mixology" and the world's greatest expert on ferrochina, and award-winning spirits educator (also owner of only the second bottle of Ferrochina in the USA!) Philip Duff to unravel the fascinating history of this category. From its invention in the late 1800s in Rome to the proliferation of brands in the early 1900s, from the category's evolution in the last fifty years to become less of a medicine and more of a recreational amaro, from the calamitous decision of the world's largest spirits company to stop producing ferrochina (in Janaury 2015!), leaving just one brand existing today, you'll learn more than you thought you ever would about the category you didn't know existed until you started reading this description. And all this as you taste your way through the largest selection of (mostly extinct) ferrochinas ever assembled, including the only one known to still be in production, sponsor of the seminar, Ferro China Baliva. Attendees will receive a (printed) handout detailing ferrochina's place within the amaro category, a history of the ferrochina category written by Fulvio & Philip especially for Tales, and will thus be instant experts in one of the most delicious and authentic sub-sets of the mighty amaro category. No-one you know (unless you know a lot of aging Italians) has ever tasted ferrochina, and that's about to change! This would be (to our knowledge) the first seminar taught about the category, to any audience, ever.