Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

Luxardo's story is one of genuine survival across two centuries. Girolamo Luxardo founded his distillery in 1821 in Zara, then part of the Austrian Empire, after his wife Maria Canevari perfected a local cherry liqueur recipe passed down through Dalmatian convents. The family thrived there for over a century — until the Second World War, when the distillery was bombed and several family members were killed. The sole survivor of the fourth generation, Giorgio Luxardo, escaped to Italy carrying nothing but a single cherry sapling, and rebuilt the company from scratch near Padua in 1947.

Made from whole marasca cherries — pits, stems, and all — fermented and distilled in small copper stills, then aged in ash wood vats for at least two years, it delivers a complex, only mildly sweet character with notes of cherry, almond, and dark chocolate, a world apart from the bright red cocktail cherries that borrowed its name.

An essential ingredient in classics like the Aviation and the Last Word, where its dry, nutty depth is genuinely irreplaceable.