I couldn't take Disaronno very seriously after the wanton college fling I had with amaretto sours.

And then there was that abominable commercial in which a willowy beauty tisks the bartender for trying to take away her Disaronno on the rocks before she'd gotten to lasciviously lick her ice cubes.

I still love it--I just drink it alone so that I don't have to say the name out loud.

I also only drink it neat for a digestivo--as the Italians who've been making it in Saronno since 1900 intended (despite our country's bent to push it with maraschino cherries at happy hour).

Obsessed with digestion, the Italians say: You aren’t what you eat, but rather, how well you digest.

They produce nearly 300 amari, or bitters, all with medicinally-based recipes that read like gypsy charms.

While Disaronno's highly guarded recipe of 17 herbs and fruits soaked in apricot kernel oil won't put the same (dark, thick, Italian) hair on your chest that Fernet-Branca or Amaro Averna will, it does coddle postprandial stomachs and leave bittersweet traces on your lips that can be licked off at your discretion.