Spirits | North America | California | Bilaro Spirits

Bilaro Spirits

Products

California

Bilaro Amaro

Summary

Bilaro Spirits was founded in 2016 in Sonoma County, California, by husband and wife team Patrick Bickford and Susan LaRossa. Patrick and Susan met while working as sommeliers in New York City fifteen years ago. Although wine was the centerpiece of their lives, amaro was always in the background. Numerous work trips to Italy always concluded with bottles of amari coming home in their luggage to stock the bar in their tiny NYC apartment. They even had an amaro bar at their wedding.

Fast forward nearly a decade, and Patrick and Susan made their way out to the west coast, settling in the heart of wine country in Sebastopol, CA. While building their wine sales consulting business, blr wine co., they began recipe testing and developing a plan for their own amaro. Living so close to some of the best vineyards in California, and after falling in love with the unique texture that grape spirit provides, they were convinced to use premium grape spirit as their base, rather than the usual grain spirit of most amari.

A mutual friend introduced them to Travis Smith, of Spiritsmith in Sebastopol, who became their distiller. Travis distills the grape spirit on site, using locally grown grapes as the source.