Ratafia is the homemade red of the Aosta Valley, the small Alpine region in Italy’s northwest: a fruit liqueur listed among the region’s traditional food products alongside génépy. It is made with sour cherries or wild black cherries, and what sets it apart is the alcohol base: pomace brandy, that is grappa, where elsewhere wine is used.
It is also the liqueur with the most confusion around it, because at least three different products share the name, and one of them, from Abruzzo, is half as strong. Below you will find the Aosta Valley recipe with its amounts, a comparison of the three versions with recalculated ABV, and the question of the pits, which is worth facing before you crush them as tradition says.
What is ratafia, and why are there three versions?
Ratafia is a liqueur made by steeping fruit in alcohol, found in three Italian regions with three different recipes: in the Aosta Valley and Piedmont it is cherries or sour cherries steeped in brandy, in Abruzzo sour cherries steeped in Montepulciano wine. All three are on Italy’s lists of traditional food products, each in its own region.
The most accepted origin places it in Piedmont around the seventeenth century, at the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria della Sala in Andorno Micca, near Biella, from where it spread to the nearby valleys and later to Abruzzo. The name is usually traced to the Latin rata fiat, the formula used to ratify an agreement, because the liqueur went with the closing of deals and notarial acts. Every popular source repeats this etymology and no document of the time records it, so take it for what it is: a traditional explanation, not an established fact.
In the Aosta Valley ratafia is documented as a household drink as early as the nineteenth century, made mostly at home and kept for the winter. The local version is recognized by three things: the fruit, sour cherries or wild mountain black cherries, the base of pomace brandy, and the lemon zest that almost always goes into the infusion.
What is the difference between Aosta Valley ratafia and the Abruzzo one?
The difference is the alcohol base, and everything else follows from it. Aosta Valley ratafia starts from grappa and alcohol, so it reaches about 30% ABV and is an after-dinner liqueur. The Abruzzo one starts from Montepulciano wine, fortified with a little alcohol, and stops around 20%: you drink it the way you would drink a sweet wine.
| Version | Alcohol base | Fruit | Calculated ABV | Sugar per liter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aosta Valley | 750 ml 40% grappa + 500 ml 95% alcohol | 1 kg sour cherries | about 30% | 307 g/L |
| Aosta Valley, grappa only | 1 liter 40% grappa | 1 kg sour cherries | about 23% | 235 g/L |
| Abruzzo | 1 liter Montepulciano + 300 ml 95% alcohol | 1 kg sour cherries | about 21% | 200 g/L |
The three rows are not three flavors of the same liqueur, they are three drinks with different uses. Below 25% the sugar and fruit stay up front and the liqueur should be drunk within the year; above 30% the alcohol acts as a preservative and the bottle keeps much longer. Search for “ratafia” without saying which, and you find the two mixed up online, with the amounts of one and the name of the other.
The Aosta Valley ratafia recipe
A kilo of pitted sour cherries, 750 milliliters of grappa, 500 milliliters of 95% alcohol, the zest of a lemon and a cinnamon stick. Forty days of steeping, then strain it and add a syrup made with 800 grams of sugar and 400 milliliters of water. Three weeks of rest and the liqueur is ready.
| Ingredient | Half batch | Base batch | Double batch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitted sour cherries or wild black cherries | 500 g (1.1 lb) | 1 kg (2.2 lb) | 2 kg (4.4 lb) |
| 40% grappa | 375 ml | 750 ml (one bottle) | 1.5 liters |
| 95% food-grade alcohol (190 proof) | 250 ml | 500 ml | 1 liter |
| Granulated sugar | 400 g (2 cups) | 800 g (4 cups) | 1.6 kg (8 cups) |
| Water | 200 ml | 400 ml | 800 ml |
| Lemon zest and cinnamon | half a lemon, half a stick | 1 lemon, 1 stick | 2 lemons, 2 sticks |
| Finished liqueur | about 1.3 liters | about 2.6 liters | about 5.2 liters |
Grappa is Italian pomace brandy, distilled from what is left of the grapes after winemaking; it is sold in the United States too, and an unaged, unflavored one is what you want here.
- Prepare the fruit. Wash the cherries and remove stems and pits. You can leave the fruit whole or crush it lightly: crushed, it gives more juice and more color, and the liqueur is cloudier to strain. Fruit that is just ripe gives aroma; overripe fruit gives fermentation.
- Steep. Cherries, grappa, alcohol, lemon zest without the white pith and cinnamon in an airtight glass jar, in the dark, for forty days. Stir every ten days.
- Strain. Remove the fruit and strain the liquid, first through a strainer, then through a paper filter. Do not squeeze the fruit much: pressure pushes fine pulp through, which clouds the liqueur and settles for months.
- Make the syrup and add it cold. Dissolve the sugar in the water over heat, turn it off as soon as it is clear and let it cool completely before pouring it into the infusion. It is a rich 2:1 syrup, because here the water is only there to carry the sugar, not to dilute.
- Measure and bottle. Before bottling, measure how much liqueur you have: that is the number you need to know how strong it really is, and it changes from batch to batch. Then dark glass, cap, three weeks in the dark.
Should you crush the cherry pits?
The traditional Aosta Valley recipe calls for some crushed pits, which give a bitter almond note. But the kernels of stone fruit contain amygdalin, a glycoside that releases hydrogen cyanide. For a homemade liqueur the cautious choice is not to crush them: the aroma you gain cannot be measured, and neither can the dose you extract.
Amygdalin itself is inert. It becomes a problem when it meets the enzymes of the digestive system, which break it down and release hydrogen cyanide. The European Food Safety Authority set an acute reference dose for cyanide of 20 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, which for a 70 kg (154 lb) person means 1.4 milligrams in a single intake.
The practical point is not that a glass of ratafia made with pits is dangerous, because the amounts in traditional recipes are modest and nobody drinks half a liter of liqueur at once. The point is that at home there is no way to know how much has been extracted: it depends on how many pits, how broken they are, how many days of steeping and the strength of the alcohol, and none of these is under control. A liqueur where the only possible answer is “a little, probably” is a liqueur to make without that ingredient.
If you still want the almond note, there are two more predictable ways: a few drops of food-grade bitter almond extract added at the end, or a cinnamon stick and two cloves, which bring a different spice but one just as traditional. You dose what you know the content of.
How strong is Aosta Valley ratafia?
Around 30% ABV, with about 307 grams of sugar per liter. The exact value depends on how much juice the cherries give up, the variable no recipe states: counting only the liquids poured in, the math would give 36%, and by the end of steeping the fruit has added about 450 milliliters, which brings the real result to around 30.
Here is the calculation. The 40% grappa brings 300 milliliters of ethanol, the 95% alcohol brings 475: 775 in all. The final volume is the sum of grappa, alcohol, water, dissolved sugar (about 0.63 milliliters per gram) and juice from the fruit: 750 plus 500 plus 400 plus 504 plus 450 makes 2,604 milliliters. Dividing, 775 over 2,604 gives 29.8% by volume. A 30 ml (1 fl oz) glass is about 86 calories.
The juice is an estimate, which is why step five of the recipe says to measure. With a kitchen measuring jug you read the final volume, and from there the ABV follows exactly: 775 divided by the milliliters you got, times one hundred. If the liqueur measures 2.4 liters, it is 32%; if 2.8, it is 27%. That is the whole difference between a number read somewhere and a number that is about your own bottle.
How long should ratafia steep?
Forty days in the dark, stirring every ten. After straining and adding the syrup, it needs at least three weeks for the alcohol to come together with the fruit. Ratafia is drunk young, within a year, and it is one of the few homemade liqueurs that gains nothing from long aging.
Red fruit loses color and scent over time: after the first year the liqueur turns brownish and the fresh cherry note fades, while the sugar and alcohol remain. If you make it in July, when the cherries are in season, it is at its best from autumn to the following spring. Storage follows the usual rules: in the dark, in glass and well capped, and above 25% ABV there is no risk of fermentation.
Out of season, frozen sour cherries work, and they actually give up their juice faster because freezing breaks the cell walls. Use them without thawing and without adding the water they release in the bag, or the ABV math changes. Cherries in syrup do not work: they bring sugar nobody counted and a liquid that dilutes.
The mistakes that ruin ratafia
Three recurring mistakes: using sweet cherries instead of sour ones, squeezing the fruit when straining, and adding the sugar at the start instead of the end. The first gives a flat liqueur, the second a cloudy one, the third slows extraction without anyone understanding why.
- Sweet cherries instead of sour ones. The acidity of sour cherries is what holds the liqueur up against 300 grams of sugar per liter. With sweet cherries the result is cloying, and there is no fix afterwards except stretching it with more alcohol.
- Squeezed fruit. Fine pulp gets through the filter and settles in the bottle for months. Better to lose a hundred milliliters of liquid than have sediment that never settles.
- Sugar in the infusion. Added at the start, sugar slows the passage of aroma from the fruit to the alcohol through osmotic pressure, and makes it impossible to work out the ABV until it has all dissolved. In the Aosta Valley recipe the syrup goes in after straining.
- Denatured or non-food alcohol. It applies to every homemade liqueur and bears repeating: you need food-grade 95% ethyl alcohol, never anything else.
Frequently asked questions
How strong is Aosta Valley ratafia? About 30% ABV in the version with grappa and 95% alcohol, the traditional Aosta Valley one. With grappa alone it drops to around 23%. Abruzzo ratafia, which starts from Montepulciano wine, stops around 21%. The exact value depends on how much juice the cherries give up, so it is worth measuring the final volume.
What is the difference between Aosta Valley and Abruzzo ratafia? The alcohol base. The Aosta Valley one is made with pomace brandy, that is grappa, often fortified with 95% alcohol; the Abruzzo one with Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine and a little alcohol. The first is a 30% digestif, the second a sweet 20% drink you have like a dessert wine.
Can you use sweet cherries instead of sour cherries? Better not. The acidity of sour cherries balances the recipe’s 300 grams of sugar per liter: with sweet cherries the liqueur turns cloying. Wild mountain black cherries, the historic raw material in the Aosta Valley, work very well because they are more acidic than table cherries.
Should the cherry pits be crushed? Tradition calls for it, for the bitter almond note, but stone fruit kernels contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide in the body. At home you cannot estimate how much is extracted, because it depends on how many pits, how broken they are and how long the infusion lasts. The cautious choice is to pit the cherries and not crush the pits.
How long should ratafia steep? Forty days in the dark, stirring every ten days, then at least three weeks of rest after adding the syrup. Drink it within the year: red fruit loses color and scent over time, and long aging does not improve it.
Is ratafia a recognized traditional product? Yes, it is on the Aosta Valley’s list of traditional food products alongside génépy, and the Piedmont and Abruzzo ratafias appear under the same name on their regions’ lists. It is a recognition from the Italian ministry that certifies the preparation is traditional, not a protected designation of origin.
In the United States, infusing legally purchased alcohol for your own use is allowed; selling it requires licenses. Please drink responsibly. This content is for readers 21 and over.