Sambuca (700 ml)

When the Alberti family established their distillery beside the Benevento railway station in 1860, they sealed the full formula in a coded herb cupboard — a legal trade secret passed parent to child, known to exactly two living people at any given time. That unbroken secrecy is not theatre; it is the technical backbone of a liqueur whose character has remained unchanged for over 160 years.

Benevento sits at the Apennine foothills roughly 50 km northeast of Naples, and the distillery draws its most distinctive botanicals directly from this landscape: wild mint harvested from the banks of the River Sabato and juniper from the Italian Apennines, supplemented by Abruzzo saffron, Florentine orris root, Ceylon cinnamon, gentian, wormwood, and roughly 60 further herbs and spices sourced from Europe, Central America, and the Orient.

Production follows a two-stage process: the ~70 botanicals are macerated in grain alcohol, then distilled in traditional swan-neck alembic pot stills. Saffron and sugar syrup are introduced at blending to fix the vivid gold colour, before the spirit is matured in oak or ash vats and bottled at 40% ABV without artificial colours or flavours.

Where peers such as Galliano lean vanilla-forward and sweet, Strega is assertively menthol-driven and resinous — a structural outlier in the Italian herbal liqueur category. The finish is long, piney, and warmly spiced, with the saffron contributing colour rather than flavour dominance.