Apéritif and digestif  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Apéritifs and digestifs are alcoholic drinks that are normally served with meals.

An apéritif (also spelled aperitif) is usually served before a meal to stimulate the appetite. This is contrasting with digestifs, which are served at the end of a meal to aid digestion, although modern medicine discredits this supposed aid in digestion. Apéritif, by extension, is the name of the snack that can precede the meal, and all the food that can come with the drink. This includes an Amuse-bouche, such as crackers, cheese, pâté, or olives. This French word is derived from the Latin verb aperire, which means “to open.”

If a digestif is a bitters, it will contain bitter or carminative herbs, which are thought to aid digestion. Digestifs, which are usually taken straight (neat), generally contain more alcohol than apéritifs. Common choices are amari, bitters, brandy, grappa, herbal liqueur, limoncello, ouzo, tequila, and whisky.

Some wines (usually fortified wines) are served as digestifs — for example, sherry, port, and madeira.

History

The apéritif was introduced in 1846, when a French chemist, Joseph Dubonnet, created a wine-based drink as a means of delivering malaria-fighting quinine. The medicine was a bitter brew, so he developed a formula of herbs and spices to mask quinine's sharp flavor, and it worked so well that the recipe has remained well-guarded ever since. French Foreign Legion soldiers made use of it in mosquito-infested Northern Africa. Joseph's wife was so fond of the drink that she had all her friends try it, and its popularity spread.

Some say that the concept of drinking a small amount of alcohol before a meal dates back to the ancient Egyptians. Main recordsTemplate:Which?, however, show that the apéritif first appeared in 1786 in Turin, Italy, when Antonio Benedetto Carpano invented vermouth in this city. In later years, vermouth was produced and sold by such well-known companies as Martini, Cinzano, and Gancia.

Apéritifs were already widespread in the 19th century in Italy, where they were being served in fashionable cafes in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Turin, and Naples. Apéritifs became very popular in Europe in the late 19th century. The popularity in Europe crossed the Atlantic and by 1900, they were also commonly served in the United States. The apéritif recrossed the Atlantic in the 1970s: the habit of a substantial food offering with the purchase of a drink during "Happy Hour" in the United States pushed the development of a more food-heavy apéritif in Italy as well. In Spain and in some countries of Latin America, apéritifs have been a staple of tapas cuisine for centuries.

Types

There is no single alcoholic drink that is always served as an apéritif. Fortified wine, liqueur, and dry champagne are probably the most common choices.

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Apéritif and digestif" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools