Rating: 20/23 N: Mmmm, this is a very complex, interesting, and balanced nose. It's sweet, but not overly so. I get orange leading the fruit, but it's integrated with other notes that I'm struggling to identify. The fruit leads into a bit of a floral character, then mint, evolving into sort of a moderately bitter pot pourri. A little cola, but not in a bad way. Oddly, there is a touch of meat, suggesting youthful alcohol. I also get this mustiness throughout. P: Sweet with lots of well-integrated flavors and a bitter backing tying it all together. Chocolate hits quickly. There's cola for sure, but mercifully without that usual metallic flavor. A bit of bitter orange peel, but actually more of a floral cherry in the fruit department. The flavors are very well integrated. Some mild dark roast coffee, with a bit of creaminess to it like some milk had been added. A touch of brown sugar to the sweetness as well. There is definitely some bitter herbal character in here and there'a a little bit of ginger, black pepper, and cinnamon mixed in. There's good depth as flavors emerge over the course of a sip. A nice light layer of mustiness helps to blend the flavors together. It took me a while to place, but it's that same mustiness that Frangelico has. Only, it's mostly good here. A big part of that is probably that there's WAY less of that mustiness here. Maybe it's just never good, but less obtrusive here. F: Chocolate, coffee, lightly floral cherry that borders on being sickly sweet. Some lingering ginger and mustiness. Aside from the cherry being a bit strong, it's still very well balanced and integrated. - Conclusion - I'm really surprised by how good this is. This is the first amaro I think I'd want to drink neat - or possibly over ice. It's delectable just on it's own - I'm thinking a 19 or 20. I could go down to an 18 though. Now I need to find some cocktails that it's good in. OK, this with Pikesville or Old Forester Rye in a Black Manhattan is awesome. Something to note though is that the cocktail is awesome even without the Angostura bitters added. The Angostura does make it taste more like a cocktail, insofar as it tastes like Angostura, but it doesn't necessarily improve the flavor. This just makes such good cocktails already! Mixed with the Old Forester, in particular, this tastes like candy. Candy with some nuance to it though. It's delicious. Peychaud's bitters, even when added in somewhat greater quantity, do help to balance this cocktail a bit, versus Angostura. Maybe I'm just less familiar with Peychaud's, but their lesser aggressiveness seems to suit this better. Look, having tried this in cocktails (well, variations on a cocktail) and found it so amazing, it's hard for me to not give it at least a 20. This is a really amazing liqueur. It's amazing alone and amazing in cocktails - nothing else has been so accomplished in both categories before. Maybe Carpano Formula Antica? I don't really think so though. It is close, but I think that this pulls ahead. I'm now thinking of a 20 as the lower limit for this. It could be a 21 or maybe a 22. I'm not so sure about a 23, but this is the closest I've ever come with a liqueur. I'll be coming back to this at some point, but for now it's a 20. I tried a Black Manhattan with Maker's Mark Cask Strength 20-04 (15/23) and found that it didn't work as well. I think that the cocktail works best with rye. So that's good to know: this doesn't work miracles in all situations. Still, I'd thought that a bourbon might be close enough to work well with this. Though maybe this is a case of the pairing being fine but quality of the bourbon being too low. The cocktail (with Angostura) is better than the Maker's, but not as good as the Averna. Switching to Booker's Shiny Barrel (19/23) (with Angostura), the Averna Black Manhattan still displayed a bit too much Angostura, but that's a good flavor. There's still plenty of fullness from the Booker's and sweetness from the Averna. The bourbon's complexity is diminished here, but the overall complexity is increased. This is a good cocktail that balanced that quality of the Averna with that of the Booker's. I've been contemplating this for a while and I've gone back and forth on whether it should be a 19 or a 20, but I've also questioned whether it maybe should be higher. My conclusion for now is that I have a mostly full bottle and that this seems to be a 20 at this point. OK, going to a full-sized cocktail with ice, this seems less impressive. I mostly get the Old Forester Rye and the Angostura helps to fill in the gaps that the melted ice leaves. Still, there's balance and complexity here. It's tasty. I think I'm stuck on a 20 here.