It was called "notary's liqueur" but today it's very popular with the female community. Traces of Ratafia Abruzzese date back to the mid-nineteenth century, when the writer Alessio de Berardinis from Teramo linked elixir made with sour cherries and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo as stipulated in the deeds. Hence the phrase ‘ut rata fiat’. A handshake and a toast with a glass of ‘sangue morlacco’, an impressive name created by Gabriele D'Annunzio before the time of advertising.
"When the given word was worth more than a thousand contracts, the intense red color of the ratafia symbolized a sort of blood pact between two people", says Anna Iannetti, who is the soul of the artisan liquor workshop Scuppoz (a dialectal term that evokes the sound of glass snapping) in the locality of Teramo, who’s carried on with her husband Adriano Cicconi the research linked to the territory typical characteristics. "Our ratafia is definitely less sweet than the Spanish one and less spicy than the French one, we don't use syrups and we manage to get the right balance between a full-bodied wine and the sour note of cherries. It should be sipped fresh and has an alcohol content of 18°," explains the manufacturer.
From the hills of Teramo to those of Chieti, where for three years Giuseppe Simigliani, a graduate in engineering, acquiring professional experience around Europe, has returned to his homeland, enhancing a cultivation of Amarene di Pescara. We are in Ripa Teatina, 300 meters above sea level with breathtaking views between the Adriatic and Majella. "After replanting this local specialty with its small and dark pulp, thanks to wild cherry graft nurseries, today I work with one hectare that I use for my Animarena: no fruit syrups, no natural aromas, just cherries picked at the end of spring and put to macerate in the tanks with a Villamagna Doc. Our secret ingredient is time. Ratafia lends itself to long ageing," says Simigliani who, with his laboratory LˑAB Liquoreria Abruzzese, he exports his products to Australia.
Tommaso Mauro's cocktail: the recipe
A thirst-quenching liqueur that is also meditative and digestif. Ratafia is definitely versatile, and it can be transformed into an excellent basic ingredient for homemade cocktails. Tommaso Mauro, Chietino globetrotter, barman and sake sommelier, proposes to La Cucina Italiana’s readers the Ratafia Collins with 3.5cl of Abruzzo ratafia, 3.0cl of Gin J7 from Distilleria Jannamico in Lanciano, 1.5cl of pink grapefruit juice, 1.5cl of lime juice, 3 drops of grapefruit bitter, a lemon peel, soda water. Pour all ingredients except soda into a shaker, add ice and shake vigorously. Filter into a Collins Glass (tall, narrow glass) filled with ice, add the soda, squeeze the lemon peel to extract the aromatic oils and leave the peel in the glass.
It requires much more work and patience to prepare a homemade ratafia which in Abruzzo is a tradition as much as limoncello is in Campania.
Ratafia: Anna Iannetti's recipe
Ingredients:
1 kg of sour cherries
1 liter of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo
300 g sugar
300 g alcohol
1 cinnamon stick.
Method:
Wash the sour cherries, dry them, and remove the pits. Put them in a glass flask with a wide opening, add the wine and cinnamon. Let the mixture macerate, possibly exposing the container to the sun for 40/50 days. Filter the liquid with gauze, add the sugar and mix well for a couple of days then add the alcohol. Let it rest for a few days and then bottle the liqueur. Which can’t be drunk for another four to five months.
text by Antonia Matarrese