Luxardo
The Italian family distillery whose Maraschino liqueur is the canonical ingredient and whose brandied Marasca cherries are the canonical cocktail garnish. Continuous family operation since 1821, with a relocation from Zara to Italy during World War II.
The family that makes the cherry liqueur and the cocktail cherries.
Luxardo is a multi-generation Italian family distillery best known in the cocktail world for two products: Maraschino liqueur (the canonical maraschino liqueur, used in dozens of classic and exotic cocktails) and Luxardo cocktail cherries (the dark, brandied, slightly bitter Marasca cherries that are the gold-standard cocktail garnish, distinct from the bright-red corn-syrup product sold as maraschino cherries in American supermarkets).
The company was founded in 1821 in Zara—a Dalmatian coast city then under Austrian rule, today the Croatian city of Zadar—by Girolamo Luxardo and his wife Maria. Girolamo was a Genoese, Maria was from Zara, and they built the distillery around the Marasca cherry: a small, tart, native cherry variety that grew wild on the Dalmatian coast. The original Luxardo Maraschino was a centuries-old monastic recipe Maria’s family had perfected, distilled from fermented Marasca cherries and their pits.
The distillery operated continuously in Zara through World War I, the interwar period, and into World War II. The bombing of Zara in 1943 during the Allied campaign destroyed the distillery and killed most of the Luxardo family. Three brothers survived; Giorgio Luxardo and his brother Nicolò smuggled cuttings of the original Marasca cherry trees out of Zara and rebuilt the distillery in Torreglia, near Padua in Italy’s Veneto region, in 1947. The current operation is the direct continuation of the 1821 company.
The products
The Luxardo lineup includes:
- Luxardo Maraschino Originale The canonical maraschino liqueur. 32% ABV, clear, herbal, bone-dry, distilled from Marasca cherries and their pits. The bottle is straw-wrapped in the traditional style—instantly recognizable.
- Luxardo Maraschino Cherries (Originali) Whole Marasca cherries jarred in a dense, viscous, slightly bitter sugar-and-cherry-juice syrup. Dark red, slightly chewy, intensely flavorful. The gold-standard cocktail cherry.
- Luxardo Sangue Morlacco A sweeter cherry liqueur made from the same Marasca cherries. Less ubiquitous than the dry Maraschino but worth knowing.
- Luxardo Amaretto, Limoncello, Sambuca, Bitter Bianco, and a long list of other Italian liqueurs The full distillery range; less consequential for the exotic-cocktail world specifically.
Role in exotic cocktails
Luxardo Maraschino liqueur appears in:
- Hemingway Daiquiri—the no-sugar Daiquiri variant. Maraschino does the sweetening work. 0.25 oz is the canonical amount.
- Mary Pickford—Eddie Woelke’s 1922 Havana classic. 0.25 oz.
- Singapore Sling—the canonical Raffles recipe includes maraschino.
- The Aviation, Last Word, Brooklyn, and dozens of classic cocktails outside the exotic-cocktail canon.
Luxardo cocktail cherries appear as garnish on:
- Every serious bar’s Mai Tai, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and any cocktail that benefits from a real cherry rather than a corn-syrup-and-red-dye product.
- The Whiskey Sour, the Brandy Alexander, and any classic that asks for cherry garnish.
To go deeper
- Website luxardo.it.
- Sourcing Both the Maraschino and the cocktail cherries are widely available at U.S. liquor stores and specialty grocers. The cocktail cherries are also available online in larger jars at meaningful price savings per cherry.
- Related Vernacular entries Maraschino Liqueur.