The new space has a library. Here is what is on the shelves.
Once we open the doors on our newly remodeled space in a few weeks, we will open our new amaro library.
Floor to ceiling. Lit from behind. Amaro, the bittersweet liqueur, from producers across Italy, Europe, and an American movement that gets more serious every year. New bottles, vintage bottles. Large batch and small batch. We are opening with a carefully chosen collection with space to eventually hold 500 bottles or more. We are building what we believe will be one of the most serious amaro collections in the Midwest.
What's a spirit library? It's not the same thing as a bar with a long list.
The idea started in wine, where winemakers kept private cellars of exceptional vintages they called their wine libraries. When high-end whiskey bars began booming in the early 2000s, they borrowed the concept. Multnomah Whiskey Library in Portland built an entire room around a collection, with rolling ladders to reach the top shelves. The Spirit Library in Manila holds thousands, in floor-to-ceiling cabinets of rare whiskies, out-of-print liqueurs, and cocktail manuals from the 1930s. In both, the design makes the bottles the point rather than the backdrop. Gin libraries followed. Then tequila. A bar is a menu. A library is a room built around the idea that the collection itself is worth exploring. You browse it. You ask questions. You come back.
What makes ours different is where it lives: inside a private dining room, built into the evening rather than set apart from it. Private dinners can be built around a guided tasting, each pour chosen to complement what the kitchen is sending out. The collection will keep growing, with bottles sourced from producers near and far. And for guests who want to go deeper, we are building events specifically designed around it, intimate evenings where the amaro is the story and the food is built around it.
Martina, our general manager and sommelier, is building and tasting through the collection herself. Her palate, her curiosity, and her decades of serious work with wine and spirits are exactly right for this. Amaro is a craft with deep roots in Italy. But with no governing body, every producer is free to find their own voice, and the rest of us are free to explore. The invitation is discovery. You do not need to know what amaro is to sit down at this library and taste your way through.
Create is a chef-driven catering company based in northeast Minneapolis. We offer custom menus, on-site cooking, rental coordination, and elevated hospitality that takes everything off your plate, including private dining at our space in northeast Minneapolis. We are booking private dining dates into winter and spring. If you have something coming up, Joan is your first call.
Reach out at joan@createcaters.com or book a call here.
