Luna Nera (700 ml)

When the Alberti family established their distillery beside the Benevento railway station in 1860, they encoded the formula for Strega in a locked herb cupboard — a trade secret so rigorously protected that only two people alive know the full recipe at any given time, a legal safeguard unique among Italian amari. The distillery occupies the same 30,000 m² building in Benevento, at the tip of the Apennines roughly 50 km northeast of Naples — a position that gives direct access to wild mint harvested from the banks of the River Sabato and juniper from the Italian Apennines, two botanicals that define the liqueur's assertively menthol-resinous character. Production begins with maceration of approximately 70 herbs and spices — including Ceylon cinnamon, Florentine orris root, gentian, wormwood, and saffron sourced from Abruzzo — in grain alcohol, followed by distillation in traditional swan-neck alembic pot stills; saffron and sugar syrup are blended in post-distillation to fix the vivid gold colour. The spirit then matures in large oak or ash vats before bottling at 40% ABV with no artificial colours or flavours. Where peers such as Galliano lean vanilla-sweet, Strega is more piney and menthol-driven — a profile unchanged since its founding year. The Alberti family also created Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Premio Strega, in 1947, anchoring the brand as both a spirits institution and a cultural one.