Chinotto and other bitters

It's 41.3 degrees Celcius outside right now and one of my strategies for cooling myself down was chugging a glass 750 ml bottle of chinotto, a bitter Italian soft drink. It was manufactured in Melbourne from "Italian chinotto syrup". It is blacker than coca-cola, and bitter and sweet with an enduring aftertaste.

An Italian's and an American's hymn to it are worth checking out (particularly if you speak Italian in the one instance, though I can get the gist of "Sono ormai oltre cinque anni da quando abbiamo deciso di colmare una scandalosa lacuna del World Wide Web, creando il primo grande sito italiano (e mondiale) dedicato alla amata bevanda." I love Italian amari digestives including Campari, and the juice of the chinotto, a kind of orange (pictured) is the essential element of most of them.

A multitude of small chinotto makers are being edged out by Nestle which makes chinotto under the branc "Chino"; a pity.