Luxardo Aperitivo

Girolamo Luxardo founded the distillery in 1821 in Zadar (then Zara, in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, now Croatia), where Maria Canevari Luxardo had been producing rosolio maraschino domestically. The Maraschino — a clear cherry-stone-and-flesh liqueur distilled from Dalmatian marasca cherries — became the company's signature. Recognition came quickly: within eight years, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Francis I officially recognised the Luxardo Maraschino as a superior product. The firm grew through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with Maraschino as its anchor.

The Zadar facility was destroyed during WWII and the Luxardo family lost members in the Italian-Yugoslav transition. In 1947, Giorgio Luxardo relocated to Torreglia, in the Euganean Hills near Padua, with — according to the family's account — a sapling of marasca cherry tree and a copy of the original Maraschino recipe. The current portfolio still anchors on the Maraschino, plus the older spice-and-cochineal Alkermes, Sambuca dei Cesari, Amaro Abano (a herbal amaro), Sangue Morlacco (a sweetened cherry liqueur), Slivovitz, Fernet, and the cherry-in-syrup product range that became globally recognised in cocktail bars from the 1990s onward. The sixth generation of the family now runs the company.