Grappa substitutes

French marc, Spanish orujo and Portuguese bagaceira are all pomace brandies made exactly like grappa. If you find any of them, stop looking.

Best for

tiramisu, digestivo, macerating fruit, soaking raisins, pan sauces, cocktails

Functionally the same spirit, and nobody will detect the swap in a dessert. Marc de Bourgogne and marc de Champagne tend to be barrel-aged and so are a little rounder and woodier than a young clear grappa, which matters only if you were serving it neat.

The everyday answer and the one already in most cupboards. Both are grape spirits, just distilled from wine rather than from the pressed skins.

Best for

tiramisu, macerating dried fruit, pan sauces, cakes, flambe, cherries and figs

Smoother, sweeter and rounder, with oak, vanilla and dried-fruit notes that grappa does not have. A tiramisu made with brandy tastes mellower and more confected, and loses the sharp grapey bite that cuts through the mascarpone. A young unaged brandy is closer than a VSOP Cognac, and a little grated lemon zest restores some of grappa's brightness.

Peruvian or Chilean grape spirit, unaged and clear, which makes it structurally very close to a young grappa giovane.

Best for

sgroppino, cocktails, sorbet, fruit desserts, digestivo

Cleaner and distinctly floral and muscat-scented where grappa is more austere and grape-skin sharp, so a sgroppino made with pisco tastes prettier and more perfumed. In many ways closer to unaged grappa than an oaked Cognac is, and much easier to find than marc.

Matches grappa on the one thing that is easiest to overlook, which is alcohol strength and clean heat, while contributing almost no flavour of its own.

Best for

sgroppino, sorbet, granita, macerating fruit, preserving

In a sgroppino, where grappa is mostly there for the alcoholic bite against lemon sorbet and Prosecco, vodka works very well and is the standard version in many recipes. In tiramisu or a fruit maceration, where the spirit was supposed to add aroma, you will notice the gap as a flat, slightly boozy blankness. Add lemon zest and a drop of vanilla to give it something to say.

Two spirits that are wrong in character but right in strength and both work well in the desserts grappa usually turns up in.

Best for

tiramisu, fruit desserts, soaked sponges, cherries, cakes

Rum adds sugarcane sweetness and a rounded tropical note, which is a very common and very good tiramisu variation in its own right. Kirsch adds a cherry and bitter-almond aroma that is lovely with stone fruit and completely unlike grappa. Choose either because you like the result, not because it resembles grappa.

If the recipe or the pour specifies an aged grappa riserva or invecchiata, a barrel-aged spirit is the closer match.

Best for

digestivo, pan sauces, with chocolate or coffee, soaking dried fruit

Armagnac shares grappa riserva's rustic, slightly wild edge and is the better pick. Rye whiskey has the right spicy bite but brings grain and vanilla that read distinctly American, so a Tuscan dessert made with it tastes off-register. Neither has grappa's grape-skin astringency, which is precisely what long barrel ageing softens anyway.

The honest non-alcoholic answer for tiramisu, soaked sponges and macerated fruit. There is no convincing alcohol-free substitute for a glass of grappa.

Best for

tiramisu, soaked cakes, macerated fruit, coffee desserts

Keeps the liquid volume and adds bitterness and aroma, so the dessert still tastes layered rather than merely sweet, but it has none of the alcoholic lift that cuts through mascarpone or cream and it will not help preserve macerated fruit. Expect a softer, sweeter, more coffee-forward result, and eat it within a day or two rather than keeping it.