Galliano

Galliano – Liquore Galliano L'Autentico

A sweet herbal liqueur created by Italian distiller Arturo Vaccari in 1896, who named the drink after an Italian war hero in the first Italo-Ethiopian war at the end of the 19th century known as Giuseppe Galliano. Its yellow color is supposed to symbolize the gold rushes of the 1890s. The liqueur was first made with an alcohol by volume level of 42.3%, this recipe is still used, however, a new kind of Galliano, which is currently being phased out, has an alcohol by volume level of 30%.

 

The drink has over 30 different herbal ingredients, some of these being star anise, mediterranean anise, ginger, and vanilla. Its flavor is considered sweet and has a complex, vanilla flavor with a dash of citrus in the mix. Galliano can be used as either a digestif, a type of drink which is supposed to help the digestion after a meal, or as an ingredient in mixed cocktails such as the Yellow Bird, Golden Cadillac, Golden Dream, Bon Voyage, Sailor Venus, and Flaming Lamborghini. However, the most notable cocktail with Galliano as a main ingredient is the Harvey Wallbanger, resulting in that a lot of drinks using Galliano as a float usually have the words “wall” or “bang” in their names. The Galliano brand is currently being marketed through the worldwide distribution venture known as Maxxium, which is a joint company of the owner of the liqueur, a Dutch distiller known as Lucas Bols.

 

The shape of the Galliano bottle is meant to resemble the shape of an old roman column, a vertical large “pole” of a building meant to support a part of the roof or a vault. In the first stage of production of Galliano, grain-neutral alcohol is infused with the different herbal flavoring agents, after this the liquid is distilled and then infused with pressed vanilla. In the last stage of the process, the vanilla and herb base is blended with distilled water, refined sugar and pure neutral alcohol.