NOTES
Mẩy Amaro Bitters is a collaborative project between Sông Cái Distillery and Lý Lở Mẩy, (Cô Chạn) a Red Dao medicine woman from Tả Phin, Lào Cai.
The Red Dao are renown for their deep expertise in medicine and medicinal botany. Địa Tiu historically has been used as an herbal medicinal tincture/liqueur to treat muscle aches and digestive issues. Infamous to the recipe is the use of poppy, the same flower used to make opium. The recipe historically uses over a dozen variety of wild forest botanicals, from roots, bark, to leaves, and dried seeds, all selected for medicinal qualities.
Sông Cái Distillery and cô Chạn will be co-owners of the product intellectual property and profits will be split half/half as such to ensure cô Chạn receives her fair share. This is our thesis to pushing the concept of sustainability further so that communities can be part-owners as opposed to just suppliers within the supply chain. In addition, as all the botanicals are found in forests, Sông Cái Distillery is working with cô Chan and her community to propagate native tree and understory species to help maintain and restore local forests and biodiversity. The abundance and availability of the botanicals is directly linked to forest health and biodiversity.
Very much like absinthe has been known by the moniker of "green fairy" for supposed hallucinogenic qualities, opium based liqueurs traditionally in Vietnam have been referred toas "tien nau" or brown fairy for similar effects. Both have historically been used for medicinal purposes and have an illicit history attached.
The recipe is based on a traditional Red Dao herbal medicinal tincture/liqueur ("Dia Tiu" in Red Dao language). This project is unique as Song Cai Distillery not only sources the botanicals from cô Chan, but has worked with her for over a year to work on recipe documentation and standardization.
Bitterness is a prominent quality but what makes this uniquely Red Dao are the smokey sarsaparilla (root beer) notes with a distinctive poppy finish.
Perfect as an aperitif or digestif.