Disaronna Originale is an amaretto (almond) liqueur with 28%abv / 56 proof, it comes in a bumpy, old fashioned, rectangular bottle. Originally known as Amaretto Di Saronno, the company changed the name to Disaronno Originale a few years ago after there were some copyright issues. The liqueur is made of 17 selected herbs and fruits soaked in apricot kernel oil, and has a beautiful amber color. It is the world's best selling Italian liqueur.

The aroma is first a toasted almond scent, followed by a waft of sweeter marzipan, then a assortment of fruits, with hints of spices and herbs intermingled throughout.The taste is a bitter sweet almond and marzipan base, piled high with a mélange of fruit and spices floating hither and yon. The legend of Disaronno is quite old and involves a pretty inn keeper who models for an artist painting a cathedral, and gives him the gift of what will become amaretto liqueur. It is argued whether Disaronno is the original liqueur that can be traced back to this legend and I will let you decide.

Disaronno Originale tastes like the grownup and more complex version of one of my favorite ice cream bars. Like with all good spirits, I am taken to a different time and place when I sip upon it. It was the summer when I was 17 and had just graduated High School. It was the first summer of a shiny new decade where any and everything was possible. There was a heat wave going on, worse than any time in the past decade or more. New York City suburbs temps were staying in the high 90's, and even going into the triple digits. I was starting to get bored so I took my graduation money and invested in renting a Good Humor ice cream truck.

I would pile all my friends into the truck to keep me company, and we would crank up my boom box, which I had wired to the trucks PA system. We were a mixed bunch of buddies, all heavy metal Rock 'n Rollers with an attitude; two white boys, a black dude, an Asian, and a Latino, and our song of choice soon became Van Halen's Ice Cream Man. Everyone seemed to like that much better than ringing those silly bells. Our customers told us it was way better than our sad sack competition with their totally annoying Mister Softee jingle. So we became known as the Rock 'n Roll Ice Cream Guys and we would drive all over the county selling ice cream. (Plus the occasional cigarettes and draft beer from our personal stash.) I tried all the various types of ice cream that I sold and finally came back again and again to just one. The Good humor Toasted Almond bar.

That was a magical summer, it always is when you have finally escaped from the drudgery and social insanity of high school. I got my first car, a more than decade old, slightly beat up, green, 1969 Dodge muscle car. Yeah, a Coronet R/T 440 426 Hemi 4 Speed, that I proceeded to turn into a Black and Fire Engine Red Hairy Hot Rod. During the days I cruised in an ice cream truck looking to make some cash, and at nights for cruisin' for chicks to spend my hard won cash on. I put on a lot of miles as the heat wave stuck around through the dog days of July and August and then right into the early fall. Even then the summer was over all too soon, and as it finally became cooler I gave up the Good Humor truck. I took a few jobs here and there, and when I finally turned 18 early that winter, I got a job working in a wine and liquor shop. I soon tasted Disaronno amaretto and thought back to that wonderful summer when I was 17, and to this day I still do, whenever I take a sip.