When I come back from Sardinia I always bring back some Mirto liquor.

Once I was invited at a friend house here in London and brought a bottle. We had dinner and start drinking it after the coffee. It was really nice and cold, so my friend drank quite a lot of it. He did not show up the morning after at work, and few days later he told me “Mirto is a bastard, I’m still shaking!” (do you remember that G.?).

The reason why many people in Italy like it, is because it is sweet with a very characteristic taste and aroma but still very strong.

Mirto is a flowering plant native of southern Europe and North Africa and grows quite well (how weird!) in Sardinia.

What we use to make the liquor, are the berries, very similar to blueberries (or may be blackcurrant but I am not an expert), alcohol, water and sugar.

Any person I ask to, back in Sardinia, has a different recipe to make mirto. Quantities or timing vary depending on taste or local traditions. I’ll write here how I do it, it is not too sweet and quite strong (around 30/35%).

• 1Kg of Mirto Berries, not easy to find here in London, but if you happen to be in Sardinia for Christmas or new year’s eve you can buy them.

• 1Kg of sugar, this is easy to find, you have just to distill a couple of bottles of coke..!

• 1lt of water

• 1lt of alcohol (95%)

The whole process takes at least 10 weeks and it starts washing the berries and then leaving them to dry for a couple of days.

When the berries are dry I put them in a terracotta bowl and cover them with alcohol. After one month (at least) the berries have produced a dark blue/black infusion that needs to be filtered. I normally also press the berries.

At this point the syrup has to be prepared (not rocket science). When the water is boiling switch off the hob and put the sugar. When this is cold add the infusion to the syrup and mix it very well.

Now, just bottle it (75cc or 50cc is the ideal size) and leave it for at least another month or two (never managed to keep it longer!).

Finally, put it in the freezer and when it is really cold (it won’t freeze), enjoy!

Luca

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