Poli Museo della Grappa Srlu

The "China febris"

• Plant: Cinchona (Cinchona Succirubra)
• Plant part: bark
• Plant feauters: digestive, astringent, tonic, stimulates gastric juice production, febrifugal, bitter, eupeptic, antidyspeptic, antimalarial

• Description:

  China febris was a bark which the Spaniards imported from America to cure "miraculously" what they called the "fevers terzianas" or intermittent fevers probably caused by malaria.
  It was the well-known bark of the Cinchona or the tree of China, which grows spontaneously and widespread in the regions of Latin America.

  The active substance of this anti-fever drug was discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century: the famous quinine had an important part in the pharmacology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as an anti-fever and and anti-malaria agent.
  In addition to the extraction of alkaloids derived from the quinine, the bark of the Cinchona is mainly used to flavor many liqueurs and for the production of the well-known China elixir.
  A Grappa from the Cinchona is therefore an excellent liqueur, indisputably a bitter with strengthening and digestive properties.

   

• Note:

  It is recommended to keep the correct dosage of the preparation and to avoid consumption during pregnancy or stomach ulcers.

The recipe

• Ingredients:

  - 1 liter Grappa
  - 350 g of sugar
  - 10 g of the bark of the cinchona
  - 8 g of gentian root
  - 6 g peel of a bitter orange
  - 8 g of achillea flowers
  - 2 g angelica root
  - 2 g root of masterwort
  - 1 g of cinnamon bark
  - 1 clove

• Preparation:

  Using other aromatic spices, the characteristically bitter-astringent taste of the Cinchona is tried to "dampened"; in a liter of Grappa, in which already 350 g of sugar have been dissolved, are added 10 g of bark of Cinchona, 8 g of gentian root, 6 g of peel of a bitter orange, 8 g of achillea flowers, 2 g of angelica root, 2 g of Masterwort root, 1 g of cinnamon bark and 1 clove.
  After one month of maceration and three months of aging the spirit is ready to be tasted.