Amaro Camatti — A Century of Ligurian Soul

There are spirits with a story, and there are spirits that are a story. Amaro Camatti belongs to the second category. Born in the 1920s in Recco — a small coastal town in Liguria, caught between the Ligurian Apennines and the sea — it has traveled through a century of Italian history without losing a single note of its original character.

Italian Aperitif Week is proud to welcome Amaro Camatti as a partner, bringing to New York one of the most authentic and historically rooted Italian liqueurs in existence.

The Origins: Recco, the 1920s, a Chemist and His Wife’s Name

Amaro Camatti was created by Umberto Briganti, a chemist from Livorno, together with his brother Cesare. Umberto chose to name the liqueur after his wife, a gesture that turned a family recipe into a lasting legacy. Those who worked in the first factory still recall the atmosphere: the intense fragrance of herbs from an old herbal dispensary, the warmth of caramelized sugar, and the particular quality of air that only a coastal Ligurian town can offer. These were not incidental details. They were ingredients.

Royal Recognition

In 1935, the company was honored with one of the most prestigious distinctions available to an Italian producer at the time: recognition as official supplier to the Royal House of His Royal Highness the Prince of Piedmont, with the right to display the Prince’s coat of arms on the factory sign. For a small Ligurian distillery, it was a statement of extraordinary quality and of the standing Amaro Camatti had already achieved.

Stronger Than War

During World War II, the Recco facility was requisitioned by the Monterosa Alpine troops, who occupied the upper floor, while soldiers of the German Wehrmacht were stationed on the ground level. Even sugar, the most basic of ingredients, was seized. Yet production resumed as soon as the war ended. Amaro Camatti outlasted the occupation.

A Dynasty, Then a Legacy

Umberto Briganti continued to prosper in the postwar years, and Amaro Camatti grew steadily in popularity across Liguria and beyond. When Briganti passed away in 1964, his son Cesare carried on the production alongside his own son until 1989, when the brand and the secret recipe were transferred to Sangallo, a company with its own deep roots in the artisanal liqueur tradition of the Genoese hinterland.

The transition was a passage of trust, not just commerce. Giovanni Bergamino, who had begun his career decades earlier working in the Ballerini liqueur workshop in Lavagna, acquired the Camatti brand with the understanding that the recipe would remain untouched.

Today: Same Recipe, New Horizons

Amaro Camatti is currently produced by Sangallo Distilleria Cinque Terre, under the careful stewardship of Stefano Bergamino and Marco De Marchi. The secret recipe remains intact. The iconic label — originally designed by Briganti, recently paired with a new bottle that pays tribute to Genova, still carries the same unassuming clarity: simple, direct, and clear about how it should be enjoyed.

In the years since, Amaro Camatti has been exported to markets across Europe, the Americas, and even Oceania. The world, it turns out, has a taste for a hundred-year-old Ligurian recipe.

Amaro Camatti at Italian Aperitif Week

The aperitivo is, at its core, an act of continuity, a ritual handed down, a recipe preserved, a moment repeated across generations because it is worth repeating. Amaro Camatti embodies this idea completely. It is a drink that connects the Dolce Vita to the present, the Ligurian coastline to the streets of Manhattan, a chemist’s workshop in 1920s Recco to the bars of New York in 2026.

When it appears at Italian Aperitif Week, it does not arrive as a novelty. It arrives as history, poured into a glass.