Italian liqueurs

Profiles of Italian commercial liqueurs: alcohol by volume, sugar content, botanicals and region, with the source of every nutrition value.

12 profiles · 12 with nutrition data · 0 still to document

Values come from producers' labels and websites. 10 of the 12 sugar values are calculated, not declared on the label. The label on the bottle always prevails. How to read these numbers

Amaro Averna

Amaro · Sicily · 1868
ABV
29%
sugar
225 g/l
kcal/100ml
250
calculated

Amaro Lucano

Amaro · Basilicata · 1894
ABV
28%
sugar
236 g/l
kcal/100ml
249
calculated

Amaro Montenegro

Amaro · Emilia-Romagna · 1885
ABV
23%
sugar
260 g/l
kcal/100ml
232
from the label

Aperol

Aperitivo · Veneto · 1919
ABV
11%
sugar
265 g/l
kcal/100ml
167
calculated

Braulio

Amaro · Lombardy · 1875
ABV
21%
sugar
243 g/l
kcal/100ml
213
calculated

Campari

Aperitivo · Lombardy · 1860
ABV
25%
sugar
239 g/l
kcal/100ml
236
from carbohydrates

Cynar

Amaro · Veneto · 1952
ABV
16.5%
sugar
264 g/l
kcal/100ml
197
calculated

Frangelico

Sweet liqueur · Piedmont · 1978
ABV
20%
sugar
232 g/l
kcal/100ml
203
calculated

Liquore Strega

Sweet liqueur · Campania · 1860
ABV
40%
sugar
308 g/l
kcal/100ml
344
calculated
How to read these numbers
12 profiles · 12 with nutrition data · 10 calculated
Where the numbers come from
Accepted sources The label on the bottle, the producer's official e-label, the producer's website.
Not nutrition aggregators: for the same product they can differ by 75%, and a field nobody ever filled in would show up here as "0 g of sugars".
When it is not the producer The profile says so plainly, naming who publishes the value.
What we do not know Stays empty. We do not put a plausible value in place of an unknown one: an estimate dressed as a measurement can no longer be told apart from real data, not even by us.
The labels under the numbers
from the label The value is the one the producer declares.
from carbohydrates The label declares 0 g of sugars but some carbohydrates. In a liqueur carbohydrates are sugar, and they are the amounts that make the energy add up.
calculated Sugar is not declared and was calculated from the energy. How, below.
not documented No accepted source publishes it.
inconsistent declaration A number exists, but it does not square with the alcohol content: for the math to work, the sugar would have to be negative. The profile shows both values instead of publishing it.
Calculated sugar
Why it is needed In the EU, drinks above 1.2% ABV are exempt from the nutrition declaration (Art. 16(4) of EU Regulation 1169/2011), and producers who provide one anyway may stop at the energy value alone (Art. 30(4)). So the usual case is: calories yes, sugars no.
Today 10 of the 12 sugar values here are calculated this way.
How it is calculated If the product contains only alcohol and carbohydrates, the declared energy is the sum of two terms, one of which is known: the other follows by difference. sugar g/100 ml = (kcal per 100 ml − ABV × 0.789 × 7) / 4
7 kcal/g for alcohol and 4 for carbohydrates are the legal factors of Annex XIV of Regulation 1169/2011, not the physiological ones: the producer calculated the energy with these, and to invert a formula you need the one that produced it.
When it is not done Creams, egg liqueurs, anything with fats and proteins: there, more than one term is unknown. Not even when fats and proteins are not declared at all, because a missing field is not a field worth zero. And not on spirits, where the real sugar is close to zero and the difference would be made of rounding.
How precise it is A few grams per liter, mostly due to the legal tolerance on the declared alcohol content (±0.3 points). In absolute terms it is almost always the same; in proportion it is not, because it is a difference between similar numbers: on a sweet amaro it is under 2%, on a very dry liqueur it can exceed 30%.
Each profile states its own. Above 15%, the number should be read as a range, and the profile says so.
Two numbers that are indices, not measurements
Saturation The ratio between the sugar in the liqueur and the 894.7 g/l of a saturated solution of sucrose in water at 20 °C.
Alcohol lowers the solubility of sugar considerably: "34% saturation" does not mean that bottle would take three times as much. It serves to line up different liqueurs on a single scale.
Bitterness index A judgment, not a measurement, and we say so because it looks like a number.
A 1 to 10 scale anchored to fixed references (Aperol 3, Averna 6, Campari 7, Fernet Branca 9): a new profile is placed relative to those, never in the abstract.
Per how much Tables are per 100 ml. When a label declares per 100 g the profile says so and does not convert: that would need the density of the liqueur, which nobody publishes.
What these profiles are not
The bottle prevails Recipes change and labels with them, often without notice. A value checked months ago may no longer hold: the label in your hand wins, not this page.
Ingredients and allergens Not listed. Anyone who must avoid milk, eggs, gluten, sulfites or sugars for health reasons should read the product label: a missing value here does not mean the substance is missing from the bottle.
Not advice The values have no medical or dietary purpose and do not replace the advice of a professional. Alcohol is harmful to health: these pages describe products, they do not invite you to drink them, and they are not meant for anyone under 21.
Trademarks Names and trademarks belong to their owners. liquori.it is not affiliated with, sponsored or authorized by the producers mentioned, and links to their websites are references, not endorsements.
Found a mistake? Write to us at contatti@liquori.it: it gets corrected, and the correction stays on record.
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