Suzanne Branciforte's Italian Grapevine

It’s the bewitching hour… You know, that time just before dinner when your taste buds cry out “Aperitivo time!” Well this Halloween season will see me mixing some alternatives to a Spritz because I’ve just learned some new recipes with a most enchanting ingredient: the liquor Strega!

Everyone knows that ‘Strega’ means witch, thanks to Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona (which should be ‘nonna’ – the grandma witch!) But few people know that Benevento, where the Strega liquor started being made some 150 years ago, is Italy’s Salem, Massachusetts – home to Italy’s most famous coven.

Le Janare were the witches from Benevento: most likely devoted to the hunting goddess Diana, they met around a walnut tree on the banks of the Sabato River (yes, the name is the Sabbath River – could it be the Black Sabbath?)
Just in case some Janare stop by, the Strega factory has a walnut tree in the middle of the parking lot…… Makes you wonder if the witches gather there at night, chanting – in Italian of course –  “Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble…”

This place is steeped in so much history and culture, it would make your head spin more than Strega itself, with 40% abv! Founded in 1860 by Giuseppe Alberti, the company is still family-owned. Strega is made of 70 some-odd herbs and spices, all natural ingredients. Things like juniper berries, cardamom, wormwood, myrrh, the spontaneous mint that grows on the riverbanks here in the Sannio. Hope no eye of newt or toe of frog got in there! (Just kidding, Strega friends!) Some of these ingredients are not even cultivated, just gathered. People actually bring in the herbs from the hills.

Who better than Giuseppe D’Avino, President of Strega Alberti Benevento SpA to guide us through this magical world?

Heady aromas filled the air and our nostrils while visiting, and I couldn’t help but think “This will cure what ails you” – and clearly, like all digestivi, it does! Bring back the nightcap culture! We need our amari and digestivi before bedtime! There is so much more to the ‘after dinner drink’ in Italy than limoncello, although that yellow cousin from Campania has certainly made a name for himself! I prefer the herby infusions of yore that monks and hermits brewed on their mountainsides, which is why I’m partial to a nice dose of Strega before bedtime.
Strega is distilled, like gin. Temperatures are important, not to cook the spices. Maceration is used, as well as essential oils. Since there’s a little something of the mad scientist in all of us, I think we all envied Signor D’Avino here…  Wouldn’t we all like to mix such a delicious concoction?

Talk about a spotless workplace!

How does it get to be that bright yellow color? One guess. Right: saffron. Talk about a coloring agent! Back in the day, Marco Polo brought saffron instead of money, it was worth so much! And here it comes in at the end, the last step. Get a load of the cauldron of bright red saffron (left) that in the glass (right) turns yellow.

Then there is the aging process: 6 months in large wood casks, because when the product is fresh, the spices don’t blend together as well. It needs time to balance out. The angels’ share here is the witches’ share: before Strega liquor gets shipped to about 50 countries worldwide, 4% of the product evaporates each year!

But Strega is also Art and Culture, Posters and Prizes, marketing genius and reinventing yourself. This is what I love about Italy: here we are in the mountains of Campania, in a city of about 60,000 people in what might be called the hinterlands of Naples, but there is history, legend and the stuff legends are made of.

What do they say? Imitation is the highest form of compliment? Wow, do these people have imitators! A wall full of failed attempts. There’s nothing like the original!

Sparing no expense, Strega’s posters were often done by big name artists, like the Futurist Depero for instance…

And the zinger is: Most people in the world of literature have heard of Italy’s famous literary prize, the Strega Prize (Italy’s equivalent of the Pulitzer). Few people realize, however, that it is sponsored by the liquore Strega from Benevento. Go ahead and read all the books that have won it – you won’t be disappointed.

So if you want to have a really Italian Halloween, go get a bottle of Strega and mix yourself a drink from their cocktails page (click here! These are barman-signed cocktails). The question will be: which cocktail to choose! Lucky me: they gave me a mixology book! Another special ingredient might be the bitters they also make: called 900, there is a red and a yellow version, inspired by recipes of products they were making back in the early 1900s. 900 Red may be a very valid alternative to Campari and certainly another fun cocktail ingredient that will have us all experimenting back at home!

And talk about prizes: Strega wins for marketing the heck out of a product: yes, those are Strega-filled chocolates on the bar (I know what I’ll be nibbling the night of October 31^st!)

Have you fallen under my Strega spell? Maybe that’s because my mother’s father was from the province of Benevento… and just by chance we visited the Strega factory on my mother’s birthday. Have some Janare genes come down to me?
To get into the mood, let me crank up Sinatra’s That Old Black Magic and pour myself a yellow thimbleful of Strega to enjoy in the glow of the fire. Happy Halloween everybody! Cheers!