Italian liquor
Italian liquor, the popular alcoholic drink is still very used in Italian eating customs.
During a traditional Italian meal, an italian liqueur will be served at the end.
Some years ago Italians used to drink whisky, brandy or other alcoholic drinks. Now they turned into their own ones such as limoncello liqueur, mirto, grappa or even vin santo.
It is usually called in a curious way as ammazza caffè that means "kill coffee", as it is served after the coffee.
If we consider the whole Italy, the most used is certainly grappa. It's a distilled drink that is made of Italian grapes' skin.
There are many types of grappa ... and of different qualities, as any other product. There are the "simple" ones and the "barrique" ones that are matured using wood barriques.
Right after grappa, there is a specialty from the Amalfi Coast (that now is produced in quite all regions of the South Italy) called Limoncello. It's a lemon liquor done using the Sicilian kind of lemon.
Limoncello is a sweet liqueurr, that pleases also the women that often finds grappa too strong for them (I am one of those!). Click here to find out how to make limoncello.
There's another tasty one that is typical from Sardinia (this one can only be produced here, and it has to have the quality seal to prove that it is done using the local nature fruit called Mirto), that other than being very tasty, helps digestion dued to natural properties of Mirto plant.
You can still meet people who will ask for an amaro (bitter) after a meal. The most famous ones during the 80's were Ramazzotti, Cynar (made from artichokes) and Jagermeister (made with herbs).
In Tuscany, it's common to finish a meal dipping cantuccini (the traditional biscuits originated in Prato) into vin santo, sweet typical tuscan white wine.