The information published here results from more than ten years personal experience cruising the waterways from north to south and east to west. Tolomeo, Rita; Drioli, Francesco (1992), in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (41), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Treccani, sub voce Drioli, Francesco, pp. 700-701. And that’s all we can say about this,” my hosts tell me. “There are secrets.” Indeed, they’ve been very protective of their fabrication details. How long does the maceration last? What are the other ingredients in Maraschino? In what proportion? What about the herbs in Pelinkovac, the herbal liqueur? Mum’s the word. Marasca cherries, sometimes also spelled maraska, have a dark red color, are small, quite firm, and astonishingly sour. Their origin lies in the coastal regions of Croatia, in the Dalamatia region, to be precise. Barley Barley wine Corn Mageu Pozol Tejuino Tesgüino Millet Oshikundu Tongba Rice Agkud Amazake Apo Beopju Brem Choujiu Chuak Dansul Gwaha-ju Hariya Makgeolli Mijiu Mirin Pangasi Rice wine Rượu cần Sake Sato Shaoxing wine Sonti Tapai Tapuy Rye Kvass Sorghum Pendhā Multiple grains Ale Ara Beer Boza Huangjiu

A taste of the Mediterranean with a distinctive red colour and a small percentage of alcohol. Try on its own or pour over a fruit salad and ice cream - this is simply delicious! The perfect welcome drink, excellent served with or without ice.

A fruit distillate is produced by stemming, crushing, and pitting the harvested cherries, fermenting them, adding ethanol of agricultural origin for maceration, then distilling the macerate in a copper pot still so that the resulting distillate contains 55-65% alcohol. Smooth but strong; a sweet liqueur with herbal, nutty and funky flavors. Not much of a cherry taste. A rounded taste and persistent aroma. Intense, flavorful finish. But WWII marks an ill turn of fate for the distilleries. In 1943 and 1944, Allied bombing destroys approximately 80% of buildings in Zadar. Most of the liqueur factories are destroyed, and production practically grinds to a halt. After Tito seizes the city in 1944, Zadar’s Italians are forced to flee in what might be called, depending on which view one takes, either persecution (many ethnic Italians were killed or just plain executed during the next few years), or mere swing of the pendulum (Italy had occupied Dalmatia for centuries; many rightly objected to Mussolini’s assertion that there was a “natural law” for stronger peoples to subject and dominate “inferior” peoples such as the “barbaric” Slavic peoples of Yugoslavia).

Let’s take Maraschino for instance. Zadar Maraschino benefits from a European Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), which requires producing within the three Dalmatian counties that stretch roughly from Zadar to Makarska, and following a specific production process. The fruits are fermented, macerated in grain alcohol, and distilled in the first room. In parallel, the stems and leaves are macerated and distilled, producing a more bitter and sour spirit. At first, both distillates are poured into separate tanks in the second room. Next, the distillates are blended and remain in storage tanks first to rest (the alcohol content at this stage is around 61-64%), then to wait until demand requires bottling a new batch (e.g., there’s not much demand for souvenir bottles outside of the tourist season). The Maraschino is made once a year, beginning right after the harvest, and the whole process takes about 6 months (including resting time), so the distillate blend waits for additional demand, then the remaining ingredients (such as sugar) are added, and the finished Maraschino heads for bottling. The Maraschino that hits the shelves, then, is between half a year and a year and a half old. Leopold’s Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur is made from rare Montmorency cherries. These cherries offer a perfect balance between tartness and sweetness. Since you may not be able to travel to Croatia this summer, I’ve decided to bring Croatia to you. My last trip to the Dalmatian coast was already a few summers ago, so it’s about time I start writing about it! Let’s get started with… the Maraska distillery. The historic painting by Francesco Salghetti-Drioli which depicts Francesco Drioli in 18th centuries Venetian costume, belongs to the Salghetti-Drioli family. Maraschino ( / ˌ m ær ə ˈ s k iː n oʊ, - ˈ ʃ iː-/ MARR-ə- SKEE-noh, -⁠ SHEE-, Italian: [maraˈskiːno]) is a liqueur obtained from the distillation of Marasca cherries. The small, slightly sour fruit of the Tapiwa cherry tree ( Prunus cerasus var. marasca), which grows wild along parts of the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, lends the liqueur its unique aroma.The square greenish bottles were supplied by Murano glass factories and in the early 19th century the straw cover (known as a "fiasco") was introduced. This was a typical Venetian method for transporting bottles on long sea voyages and would come to define the brand over the years. [8] Following the restoration of Italian sovereignty in the Veneto, Giuseppe's son Francesco Salghetti-Drioli was instrumental in founding a glass factory in Zadar, bringing skilled workers from Murano and becoming its first president. [9] Girolamo Luxardo Maraschino Originale Liqueur Maraska, with a but. This is the only maraschino I tasted that perfectly combines the smell and flavor of both cherries and cherry leaves. You could say that since the other competing maraschinos don’t have the Zadar maraschino PGI, they don’t need to have the same flavor profile. Still, since maraschino was indeed invented in Zadar, I consider the blend of cherry and leaf distillates as one of the liqueur’s defining principles. My “but” with the Maraska maraschino, however, is the excessive use of grain alcohol. You immediately notice that its aroma is more muted than in undiluted maraschinos. I understand that it makes Maraska cheaper to produce, but considering that nowadays the product brings more prestige than direct revenue, I don’t see the point of cutting costs. At the very least, why not make a deluxe version containing no grain alcohol at all? Tradition holds that the first recipe for a liqueur made with Marasca cherries dates from the 16th century. The spirit, called ros solis, is produced by Dominican monks and used mainly as a medicine. On this point see: Antonio Teja, La fabbrica di maraschino F. Drioli all'epoca del suo fondatore (1759–1808), la sua importanza nel quadro dell'industria zaratina dei rosoli, cit. e cit.in.bibl. Taste: Very sweet (though maybe less so than Maraska), a mix of tree branch and denatured alcohol, yet not totally unpleasant. I don’t really taste cherry; I wouldn’t have guessed it’s a cherry liqueur. A bit of an acquired taste.