DIMMI LIQUORE DI MILANO
Once a year or so a new product enters the market and permanently burns an exquisite flavor impression into our brain. Often times we find ourselves getting a sneak peak of this delectable new elixir and, while we count ourselves fortunate enough to be in the category of first tasters, we’d really be happiest if the product was readily available across the nation the moment we taste it so that we could share our pleasure with you and therefore you too could be an early adopter.
Dimmi (formally known as Dimmi Liquore Di Milano) www.dimmispirits.com is one of those products. And it is definitely one of those products you’ll want to adopt as soon as it enters your market. We have Dustin Dyer of Domaine Select Wine Estates (Food & Wine Magazine’s 2010 winner for Importer of the Year) (www.domaineselect.com) to thank for sharing it with us at last year’s Tales of the Cocktail (www.talesofthecocktail.com) and you can thank DSWE for making it more widely available to you now.
Launched in California and created by wine industry veteran, Stefano Turini, Dimmi, with its complex and seductive floral and stone fruit flavor created by a distillate of northern Italian organic winter wheat that takes six month to infuse with a family vermouth recipe dating back to the 1930s, is getting into the hands of bartenders and chefs who are seeking another elegant, sweet and refreshing liquid tool for their repertoire. The liqueur unites other ingredients and spirits very subtly. According to Turini, Neyah White said it best when he commented, “Dimmi lays flowers around the feet of other flowers it mixes with.”
Turini decided in 2000 to mix it up in the spirits business with his desire to create a new spirit in Italy where he lives. He explains the process, “It took a little while to really come up with the right ingredients and style and while I was doing that the whole cocktail craze was developing in the US at the same time. As I fine tuned my plan for a fine Italian liquore I wanted to make sure it could play an important role in cocktails.”
He continues, “It was about passion for sure – first my passion for Italy, second my passion for wine and cuisine. Food is very important for me. The key to my business plan is wine, spirits and cuisine. I know that whatever restaurant or bar it is and if it produces tremendous food and people are enjoying it their bar will be popular and they’ll sell a lot of cocktails.”
A lot of hot selling cocktails are rewarded with the inclusion of this liqueur featuring the old family vermouth recipe, which includes wormwood, bitter orange, liquorice, rhubarb, vanilla and ginseng married to the new recipe of apricot and peach blossoms created by Turini and his Italian partners. The addition of Nebbiolo grappa completes the union.
More than just a mixer, Dimmi stands up in a cocktail and can be showcased as a secondary spirit. It functions beautifully chilled as a simple aperitivo but its true raison d’etre in the glass is for cocktails. Many bartenders tasting it for the first time
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