The walnuts go into the alcohol on the night of June 24th, still green, still wrapped in their husks. That’s the tradition in Andorno Micca, a village in the Valle Cervo above Biella in Piedmont, where the nuns of the Monastero di Santa Maria della Sala were already making ratafi back in the 1600s. Giovanni Rapa founded his liquorificio in the village in 1880, and it has been turning out the same liqueur ever since. The green walnuts macerate for months with sugar and a spice rack of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and clove, and emerge as something dark, glossy, and unmistakable walnut skin, bitter cocoa, and Christmas in a glass. It’s sweet, yes, but there’s a green, tannic bite running underneath that keeps it from ever turning cloying. Pour it neat or over ice after dinner. It is also lethal over vanilla gelato and terrific next to a wedge of Gorgonzola.