Maraschino (1 L)

In 1821, Maria Canevari wrote down the recipe that Girolamo Luxardo would use to found his distillery in Zara, Dalmatia — a recipe the family has not altered in over two centuries, surviving displacement, war, and relocation to the Euganean Hills of Veneto in 1947. That continuity is not sentiment; it is the technical specification. Whole Marasca sour cherries — pits, stems, leaves, and skins included — are soft-pressed and fully fermented, then the entire mash is infused in larchwood vats for up to three years before batch distillation in traditional copper pot stills with steam heating, separating heads, hearts, and tails. The distillate then rests in neutral Finnish ashwood vats for approximately 1.5–2 years — a low-tannin, colour-neutral wood chosen specifically for oxidative mellowing without imparting flavour. What makes this expression categorically distinct is the pit-and-leaf inclusion: the cyanogenic glycosides in Marasca pits convert during fermentation and distillation into the dry, marzipan-edged complexity that no flavoured cherry cordial can approach. Luxardo owns the largest cherry orchard in the EU — approximately 22,000–30,000 proprietary 'Luxardo Marasca' trees registered as a varietal in 1998 — giving complete vertical integration from Euganean Hills terroir to bottle. Bottled at 32% ABV, hand-wrapped in plaited straw per the original transport tradition.