I recently acquired a bottle of clear eau de vie distilled from gentian, which was supplied via the haphazard channel of an extended family network on my Swiss side who knew the producer. The label was handwritten and the spirit inside, while undeniably bitter, also had an enveloping earthiness evocative of rural Swiss life: farms with stills and the cool, damp smell of pasture before the sun is high.
Legends from childhood include the story about a policeman coming to shut down the moonshining still. After drinking gentian eau de vie, the officer was bewitched by the “yellow fairy,” forgot their intention, and returned to the police station. Yellow fairy, the Swiss name for gentian eau de vie, echoes references to another Swiss spirit with a powerful reputation: absinthe, which is alleged to bring communion with the green fairy. Both its colloquial name and the tales of distilling exploits convey a little of the magic of gentian, which is distilled into a bitter drink that is somehow also desirable throughout the Alpine regions of Europe.
To understand our attraction to bitterness and why we consume botanicals that are supposed to trigger aversion, it’s helpful to look back in time to 450 million years ago when the first sharks appeared. Like their ancestors, modern-day sharks have receptors that can detect chemicals responsible for bitterness, even though sharks don’t come into contact with bitter plants, the main source of bitter flavors. That we share the capacity to taste bitterness with sharks, from which we diverged hundreds of millions of years ago, shows the ancient origins of this ability. Detection of bitter chemicals has a greater role within our bodies than just driving aversion to potentially poisonous substances; it can also trigger other responses. For example, bitter receptors are not confined to our tongues. In the nose, they prompt immune system responses against upper respiratory tract infections.
While bitterness can act as a warning signal that a substance contains toxins, not all bitter foods are toxic, and bitterness is not inherently a taste element to be excluded. In many foods and drinks that people consume — including spirits — bitterness can be appealing. Gentians are popular bittering agents that feature throughout the alphabet of bar staples: Aperol, bitters, Campari, etc. For most people, gentian evokes an image of deep blue flowers in alpine pastures. But, with around 1,750 members of Gentianaceae, the gentian family, gentians are much more diverse than this. They bloom in colors from lime green to pink as well as blue. Yet they also share morphological similarities. For example, their petals are fused at least at the base of the flower, and petals twist to the right when still in the bud. Additionally, there are chemical characteristics in common; members of the gentian family contain xanthones and secoiridoids, the latter of which we experience as gentian’s characteristic bitterness.
In the context of bittering drinks, gentian most commonly refers to yellow gentian (Gentiana lutea), but other members of the gentian family are also used. Rinomato aperitif liqueur and Scarpa Vermouth di Torino from Italy use chirata (Swertia chirayita) as a bittering agent. This member of the gentian family grows in the Himalayas and in India is also known by the common name of bitter stick. It is harvested as a whole plant from roots to flowers. Dried for use, most of its bulk is stalks. Some amari and vermouths incorporate dried flowers of stemless gentian (Gentiana acaulis). These are not sufficient as a sole bittering agent and are used in conjunction with the root of yellow gentian or other bitter botanicals such as wormwood (Artemisia absinthium).
Roots of spotted gentian (Gentiana punctata) are the leading element of horec liqueur from the Slovak Republic, which is traditionally drunk first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. This is wild-collected or dug up from small-scale cultivation in gardens in spring or autumn. Roots are cleaned of earth before being cut and infused in 40% ABV spirit for a couple of weeks. Afterward this is fortified with pure alcohol and drunk as an infusion or added to alcoholic drinks using blends of flavors. Crossed gentian (Gentiana cruciata) is sometimes substituted for spotted gentian.
Gentians that are native to Asia and Europe are used regionally for local drinks, and, in the case of chirata and yellow gentian, collected and sold for international trade. Contrastingly, common centaury (Centaurium erythraea) has naturalized outside of its native range in north Africa, western Asia, and Europe and been absorbed into drinks made in its new home. In markets in Kosovo, small bundles of common centaury stems with leaves and flowers attached can be bought from people selling herbs for use in teas and homemade infusions in alcohol. These bundles are sold fresh when common centaury is flowering in summer and dried throughout the year. Common centaury is incorporated in Weltenburg Abbey Liqueur from Germany as well as Italian vermouths. In Ecuador, where common centaury is an introduced species, whole plants are sold in bundles of assorted herbs that are used to make agua de frescos, a refreshing tonic drink.
Yellow gentian is a large gentian in stature, up to two meters tall when in flower. Traded as a dried and chopped product, the massive size of its roots is obscured. On mature plants (around 45 years old) the taproot is usually over a meter long and weighs over seven kilos. Yellow gentian is in wide commercial demand. In the wild, it grows across central and southern Europe to western Asia, including from France, Portugal, and Spain in the west to Turkey and Ukraine in the east. As it is a mountain plant that prefers alpine meadows, it is notably absent from low-lying Hungary and only present in the Czech Republic as an introduced species.
Yellow gentian has fostered an example of biocultural diversity, or the connection between human culture and the diversity of other living species, in the Massif Central highlands in south central France. People who harvest gentians are known in French as gentianaires. As harvesting takes place in spring and autumn, not when gentian bears its distinctive spike of yellow flowers in summer, knowing the difference between yellow gentian and poisonous look-alike white false hellebore (Veratrum album) is essential. Both grow in the same areas, and both have strongly ridged oval leaves, but they are differentiated by the arrangement of their leaves. Yellow gentians have leaves in pairs and white false hellebore has leaves placed alternately on their stems. A pickaxe and a fork with only two tines, each a meter long, and a footboard to push it deeper into the ground are the tools used to dig and lever gentian roots. Freshly harvested roots are put in breathable bags to ensure they do not ferment. They are cleaned using a knife to remove buds and fine roots before being washed. Yellow gentian destined for sale as dried roots, for use by herbalists or in making vermouths, is cut into smaller pieces and left to dry for several weeks. Gentian intended for distillation is sliced and macerated in alcohol or directly fermented to make eau de vie. In fall the concentration of sugar in the roots reaches 50% and stays at this level through winter. Sugar content decreases as spring progresses and plants use their carbohydrate store to put up flower spikes.
Gentiopicrin is the dominant secoiridoid in yellow gentian roots. Xanthones are also present and add yellow coloration to liquids gentian roots are infused or macerated in. There are large variations in the chemical composition of fortified wines, liqueurs, and spirits made using gentian. Secoiridoids and iridoids such as amarogentin, loganic acid, and sweroside can be present in larger proportions than gentiopicrin. The geographical regions from which the roots are sourced, the conditions in which plants grow, and the processing method exert influence on the proportions of chemical constituents in gentian. For example, amarogentin is more concentrated in secondary roots and in plants that grow wild, whereas sweroside is more concentrated in cultivated plants.
Because plants are dug up and do not continue to grow after removal of their roots, harvesting yellow gentian is destructive. Furthermore, seed germination requires freezing weather lasting ten to twelve weeks followed by warmth in order to break dormancy. This is a constraint that may become critical as climate change erodes winter. Both overgrazing and abandonment of pastures have had a negative impact on yellow gentian, as they have changed its habitat. Nevertheless, yellow gentian has not been designated at risk of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Populations in the Alps are considered to be stable, but in the central region of France, Greece, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia, yellow gentian is thought to be declining. There is insufficient data for assessing population status in Spain.
Gentiane Jaune, an interprofessional association spanning growers, collectors, and producers of products using gentian within the Comité des Plantes à Parfum Aromatiques et Médicinales, is developing sustainable management protocols for yellow gentian in the Massif Central of France. Suggestions include collecting the roots after seed has set in autumn, keeping records of weights collected and traded, and rotating sites to restrict collection intervals to once every 20 years. Suze, the French aperitif, combines cultivated and wild harvested gentian roots to restrict their use of wild populations.
Although broadly associated with the category of aperitifs, spirits using gentian don’t have to be consumed before food. In Switzerland, gentian eau de vie can be paired with dessert where its bitterness contrasts with sweetness and fat, as well as serving a digestive function. Currently fresh gentian root is only available where it grows wild. Making single-note gentian eau de vie is better situated to the alpine regions of Europe, where yellow gentian grows wild and is available as a fresh root. It could be cultivated in the U.S. within USDA hardiness zones 4–8, but it struggles in areas with hot and humid summer nights. It would take patience to wait years for the first crop to be ready. Dried gentian root from France is of reliable quality, and you can ask suppliers if they are part of Gentiane Jaune and which steps they take to monitor the impact of their harvest and support its sustainability.
Gentian bitterness is undeniable, and this is its primary use in spirits, liqueurs, and fortified wines. However, gentian has more complexity than the straightforward bitterness of cinchona. When appearing with numerous accompanying ingredients, as it often is in vermouths, the bitterness of gentian comes through while its richer, earthy flavor is often masked. In simpler pairings, such as lean and dry vermouths without the masking of added sugar, gentian can be more fully tasted. It enhances the depth of flavor of chocolate and can make a sophisticated digestif to be enjoyed after eating.
Because gentian roots spend years underground enveloped in soil before they are harvested — quite different from the brief, singular growing season of crops like potatoes and sugar beets — it is a flavor to savor. Gentian is certainly a botanical to approach with caution for its bitterness, respect for the time it takes to mature, and thoughtfulness in choosing suppliers who are committed to ensuring it continues to grow wild in Alpine pastures for decades to come.
