Region: California
Address: 275 South Van Ness
San Francisco, CA
Website: https://brucatoamaro.com/
Price: $35 + fees
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The 411 on the Brucato Amaro Distillery’s Tasting Tour #
Brucato Amaro Distillery is making amazing California-inspired amaro. What’s amaro? Commonly thought of as digestifs, amari are bitter liqueurs. They begin with unaged grape brandy that is then infused with the herbs, fruits, and other aromatics native to an area. Amaro originated in Italy, but many regions of the world make their own versions. Sierra and James Clark, owners of Brucato Amaro Distillery, decided they would be the first local producers of a distinctively Californian amaro.
Image from the Brucato Amaro website
The Brucato Amaro brand is named for John G. Brucato, an early cultivator of the San Francisco food and drink scene. He’s a hero of the Clarks for his remarkable contributions to the farm-to-fork ethos of the Bay Area. As the founder of San Francisco’s first farmers market, he strengthened relationships between farmers and the urban population. Brucato also ran a winery in the city and later served the water department for many years.
It's wonderful to have a distillery open to the public like this right on the northern edge of the Mission district. Bar Brucato, their cozy restaurant space, is located above the distillery proper. Tasting tours are roughly 45 minutes, and you’ll learn a lot about the process of making amaro, the ingredients they’ve chosen for their three main amaro products, and the plans the Clarks have for the Brucato Amaro brand. Those include exciting experiments that we were sworn to secrecy about until they are released!
You'll also taste their amari, of course:
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And you’ll probably get special sips of those upcoming projects, along with nibbles from Bar Brucato.
My Take on the Brucato Amaro Distillery Tour #
The Vibe: This tour is a relaxed, unpretentious peek at the process of making amaro. It helps put you in the mood by beginning with a surprise beverage. In this case, that was the Goosenest spritz cocktail, featuring the Brucato Amaro Orchards alongside Lillet, Pommeau, Cava, and soda.
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The Goosenest is a delightfully refreshing spritz. It’s easy to pick out the soft herbal qualities that the Orchards amaro contributes: cinnamon, sweet lemon, apricot, and a small sip of bitter gentian.
After touring through the aging barrels, working stills, and bottling machines, we were led to a table full of dried versions of several of the herbs, flowers, and spices that Brucato Amaro uses for their three main amari.
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I was most intrigued by the yerba santa and the elderberries, though I was not as brave as some in my group to try them dry! Just a sniff did fine to satisfy my curiosity.
The Tasting:
Back at the distillery’s entrance table, the tasting began. Our first glass was of the Orchards amaro, described by Sierra as the closest to Campari. I found it a sophisticated, subtler version of that Italian classic liqueur, one that would complement the gin of a negroni rather than compete with gin’s bold flavors. It’s very tasty and has great cocktail potential. In fact, we tried a cocktail featuring it after the tasting: the Old Pal.
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Bar Brucato’s version of the Old Pal is made with Orchards amaro, rye, and dry vermouth. It’s simple yet bursting with flavor.
The second taster was Woodlands amaro, which wowed us all. It’s almost like a mix of Port and a digestif, with a thicker mouthfeel and earthier ingredients than the Orchards. Cacao nibs, black mission fig, and elderberry stand out. I can already confirm, from the half-empty bottle on my shelf, that it’s quite enjoyable on its own as a sipper. But it would work well in cocktails that benefit from a rich element. That’s undoubtedly why Bar Brucato features it in their take on a Blood and Sand.
Next up was the Chaparral amaro. Its profile tasted similar to Chartreuse, as Sierra suggested it would, but it had less heat than that liqueur and more depth, according to my palate. It’s harder to sip on its own than the Chapparal and the Woodlands, with more punch from the gentian, yerba santa, and cardamom and twice as strong of an alcohol by volume percentage at 46%. I was glad to try it in the Bijou cocktail after the tasting.
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That one’s made with Chaparral amaro, gin, and sweet vermouth. I enjoyed it less than the Old Pal, but I think I just wasn’t feeling sweet vermouth after a spritzer and the tasting. The Chaparral has tons of potential for adding a je ne sais quois boost to cocktails.
The fourth tasting glass was . . . oh wait, I can’t tell you that. 😉 Nor can I share about the extra special fifth glass we sampled, but I am super excited to someday replace the triple sec in my liquor cabinet with that one! Hint hint.
The Nibbles: As palate cleansers during the tasting, we were served a few offerings from Bar Brucato’s appetizer menu. I loved the cheddar cheese pennies with a healthy paprika punch. The almonds tossed with za’atar and sumac worked very well to palate cleanse. But wow. Wow. The house bread, served piping hot with cacio e pepe butter, was jaw-droppingly good.
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Yes, you read that right, cacio e pepe butter. It was so good. So good that we, in fact, decided we had to stay after the tour concluded for a second round of the bread. We also tried the chicken-fat fried fingerlings—i.e., chicken skin—topped with fried rosemary and shallots and served with a bottle of habanero-apricot hot sauce.
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Great dish! Chicken skin is not something I’m excited to eat often, but these were battered and fried to a lovely crunch, only mildly greasy, and went incredibly well with the fried shallots and hot sauce. Without those toppings, the chicken skin wedges would be a little plain, but with them, they popped.
Would I Go Back for a $35 tasting? I think once is enough for the tour, but Bar Brucato also offers a tasting flight without the tour for $18. The quality of all five Brucato Amaro products I tried has stuck with me; I’m certain I’ll be a regular customer at $40 a bottle. I went home with only the Woodlands because it’s the only one I could just add an ice cube to and enjoy—that’s the level of complexity my home bar could handle while my kitchen was being remodeled.
So I have a ready excuse to go back to the Brucato Amaro distillery to pick up the Chapparal and Orchards too! But let’s be real, I need no excuse to order up more of that bread and butter, and maybe try an entrée, too, next time.
Reservations are required for the tour and recommended if you want to dine at Bar Brucato afterward. Believe me, you’ll want to dine at Bar Brucato afterward.
Toured 9 May 2025.
Heading into a tasting room, whether as part of a winery, distillery, meadery, or brewery, is always exciting for me. I love being able to sample several items, always hoping the flight will offer the joy of unexpected flavors or show off clear differences between aging and brewing styles. Ideally, the location will offer a mix of relaxation and information, and when beautiful scenery is also on offer? Perfection.