Fiery alcoholic drink (from Italy) made from the leftovers of the wine making process.
After pressing and extracting the juice, the resulting mass of grape pulp, skins, seeds and twig is cooked, allowed to ferment, and distilled.
What comes out has about 40° and is usually clear in color.
grappa used to be really cheap, nasty, low-quality booze. It has recently undergone a process of marketing and refinement, turning into a drink you can mention (and quaff) in polite company. Especially neat is grappa bottled in hand blown glassware, usually looking like something that should live in a chemical lab or an alchemist's den. Good brands are Piave (middle end) and Nonino (high end, from Trieste).
Good grappa always declares its origins, that's to say the place of production and what kind of grapes/wine were used in the making, for example Grappa di Pinot Grigio.
Grappa should not be used in cocktails, and it should be drunk at room temperature, slowly, and with joy.
Well, there is one cocktail-ish use of grappa, that's to say to spike
espresso (producing
caffè corretto), and it is
canonical because we do it in
Italy,
so there.
grapa in Mexico City means a dose of cocaine, but you shouldn't admit you know that, at least not in polite company.