maraschino is a traditional cherry liqueur and a staple ingredient for bartenders since the late nineteenth century. Unlike cherry brandies, for which the fruit is usually infused and not distilled, maraschinos are clear, colorless distilled liqueurs. Whole marascas, the small, sour, and slightly bitter cherries to which the liqueur owes its name (Prunus cerasus acidior), macerate in neutral spirit, crushed pit and leaves included, before being distilled. The resulting spirit is then diluted and sweetened with sugar to produce the final liqueur.
This particular variety of cherry is indigenous to Dalmatia, in Croatia. It is thought the liqueur was first distilled in local monasteries, as “rosolio di Marasca.” See rosolio. The industry’s growth started in the eighteenth century, when the region was under Venetian domination. Francesco Drioli (1738–1808), a Venetian distiller, is credited with its development in the town of Zadar (then called Zara). Dates are disputed: in the 1930s, the Drioli company claimed to have been founded in 1759, although 1768 or 1769 had been used in all official communications until then, perhaps because it was then that Drioli quit his day job (so to speak) as a merchant to concentrate on distilling. Drioli did not invent the process of making maraschino, though; that distinction belongs to another Zadar-based Venetian distiller, Giuseppe Carceniga, who had perfected the process in 1730 and successfully commercialized it. Carceniga may have been the first producer to export maraschino in its iconic straw-lined bottles—the straw was meant to protect the fragile Murano glass during transportation. It was described in writing as early as 1766, and Drioli didn’t start using it until the early 1800s.
Drioli’s brand was nevertheless the first to gain wider international recognition. Many distillers soon tried to follow in its footsteps. Most famous among them is Luxardo, the current worldwide leader, set up in 1821 in Zadar. The destruction of the family’s distillery by Allied bombing and the murder of two family members by Yugoslav partisans during World War II led to the relocation of the business to Padova, Italy. Other producers, including Drioli, whose distillery was also razed, followed, and after the conflict the Yugoslavian government set up Maraska, Zadar’s only remaining maraschino producer, in the ruins of the Luxardo facility. Drioli closed in 1980.
Traditionally drunk on its own in a small liqueur glass as a digestive, maraschino seduced French and Italian upper classes in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It made the jump to Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century and was one of the ingredients in the influential Regent’s Punch, the favorite beverage of the prince regent. See Regent’s Punch. It reached the United States at roughly the same time but only became part of the American bartender’s repertoire in the 1860s, with the liqueur first appearing in a couple of European recipes in Charles Campbell’s 1867
Maraschino was also an essential ingredient for Cuban bartenders in the 1920s and 1930s. It plays a key role in the Mary Pickford and the Daiquiri no. 4, the blended Daiquiri with a touch of maraschino that made the Floridita famous. The liqueur was also called upon for the Daiquiri no. 3, now better known as the Hemingway Daiquiri.
After World War II, its offbeat flavor profile—neither sweet nor fruity enough—did not endear it to the new generation of drinkers, and much like classical mixology, maraschino went into decline. This changed with the cocktail renaissance, when bartenders returned to canonical recipes. The most important drink for the liqueur’s resurgence was the then little-known Last Word. Unusual in that it called for a whole ounce of maraschino, it was popularized by bartender Murray Stenson in 2004. Now ubiquitous in cocktail bars worldwide, it cemented maraschino’s place as an essential cocktail ingredient for today’s bartenders. See Last Word.
Appiotti, Mirella. “Luxardo, il desaparecido di Zara.” La stampa, November 21, “Maraschino.” Saperbere. http://www.saperebere.com/liquori/liquori-m/ (accessed February 19, 2021).
“Marasco.” Annuario Dalmatico, 1884, 280–282.
Teja, Antonio. La fabbrica di Maraschino Francesco Drioli all’epoca del suo fondatore (1759-1808). Genoa: self-published, 1938.
By: Sother Teague