At Quiosque de São Paulo, a easy cocktail of lemon and bitter-almond liqueur is the right drink for summer season.
“You’ll be able to style the bitter cyanide,” says André Magalhães, his face breaking right into a smile somewhat than an expression suggesting concern of imminent poisoning. We’re at his Lisbon kiosk, Quiosque de São Paulo, downing glasses of Amarguinha, a easy cocktail made with the Portuguese bitter-almond liqueur of the identical identify. It’s summer season, and the drink is the right warmth killer: the aromatic base, paying homage to a barely sweeter amaretto, blended with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and served over ice. The drink is a refreshing, near-perfect stability of candy and tart flavors with a definite—some may say harmful—aroma.
Quiosque de São Paulo, resplendently purple and boasting swish wrought-iron thrives and vintage signage, is one in all a number of Artwork Nouveau kiosks that dot Lisbon. Town’s kiosk craze kicked off within the late nineteenth century and at its peak, it’s thought that Lisbon was dwelling to as many as 67 kiosks. (A current Google search revealed round 24.) Quiosque de São Paulo is believed up to now again to the early days of Lisbon kiosks, round 1892, and like many different kiosks in Lisbon, it serves a brief menu of drinks and snacks.
“Within the outdated days, kiosks would simply supply pictures of alcohol,” Magalhães tells me. “Extra refined drinks got here with the kiosk revival, within the 2000s. Town needed to revitalize the deserted kiosks, and gave out a lot of leases, however they largely simply bought issues to vacationers, dropping the identification of the kiosk tradition right here. We took over this kiosk, the oldest and solely privately owned one in Lisbon, to revive all these outdated dishes and drinks.”
A scan of the menu of Quiosque de São Paulo reveals archaic drinks akin to vinho quinado (port wine supplemented with quinine), and hard-to-find snacks akin to punheta de bacalhau (“salt cod hand job”), a salad of strips of salt cod and onion bathed in olive oil. Magalhães eschews Coca-Cola for a housemade salsaparrilha, an area model of sarsaparilla, and a glass is perhaps paired with a chamuça, a samosalike snack that originated in Goa, India—previously a Portuguese colonial territory.
Magalhães explains that Portugal’s bitter-almond liqueur was almost certainly launched by Arabs, who managed a lot of the Iberian Peninsula for practically eight centuries, and who had a number of refined makes use of for almonds. Historically, it’s created from grape pomace brandy during which bitter almonds have been soaked for a number of days. After straining and discarding the almonds, sugar and water are added to the booze to stability the flavour and alcohol degree.
“In concept, it’s associated to amaretto and Italian bitter-almond liqueurs,” Magalhães tells me. “However the Italian model is darkish in coloration as a result of they add caramel, whereas we use syrup. The Italian model additionally makes use of apricot kernels, which give it a special aroma.”
Magalhães tells me that the drink has robust hyperlinks with southern Portugal, the place it’s generally known as licor de amêndoa amarga, “bitter-almond liqueur.” It most likely wouldn’t have been extensively accessible in Lisbon a century in the past, he says, however it belongs to the household of syrupy candy liqueurs, with flavors akin to bitter cherry and anise, that have been kiosk staples again within the day.
Right now, bitter-almond liqueur is frequent throughout Portugal, and like Kleenex or Band-Help within the U.S., is a product that has grow to be virtually totally synonymous with one model: Amarguinha.
Lately, bartenders have used the liqueur in several purposes, birthing the Amarguinha Bitter (ostensibly a riff on the Amaretto Bitter) and even a Mojito. Madonna, per an Instagram story she shared in 2019, drinks Amarguinha blended with tonic water to rejoice her album releases. However within the warmth of Libson summer season, Magalhães’ easy manner with Amarguinha is greatest: with some lemon juice, on the rocks, ideally at a Lisbon kiosk.
