Leardini Liquori Shop

Leardini liqueurs have been handed down for four generations. The progenitor was Domenico, then Antonio, then Leonardo and now it is Mauro who manages this characteristic craft workshop. This reality, even if small, exists thanks to the passion and tenacity that the Leardini family has maintained over time and thanks to the ability to know in depth both the properties of the herbs, collected directly, and the recipes of infusions handed down from generation to generation. The Leardini family has the perseverance of those who continue to use ancient techniques, respecting the times that nature wants. It is not nostalgia, it is not fanaticism. It is experience and a bit of healthy madness given the times of "everything and now". For this you will not find in Leardini liqueurs neither artificial flavors nor added dyes. The production is limited and reserved for those who can appreciate the taste of genuine products.
In the Leardini family, liqueurs have been at home since the young Domenico tried his luck in French Switzerland to help the poor family who remained in San Leo, a small town in the center of Montefeltro. On his return, together with his son Antonio, he develops many liqueurs, however produced only for family or given to friends. It was after the war that Antonio's son, Leonardo, who was also very poor but in a rebirth of Italy, decided to try a small production with which to make a living.
The young Leonardo marketed some products that his father Antonio had developed in previous years. Thus, four liqueurs were born in the tiny artisan workshop under the house, which he sold to tourists passing through San Leo.
Leonardo never married: as a family he had his own liqueurs to which he devoted himself continuously until the age of 88. However, he wanted his business, through his nephew Mauro, to continue according to the ancient liqueur tradition that he himself had followed for almost 60 years. Mauro has resumed production, in the manner of his uncle Leonardo, no longer in San Leo but in Affile, a miniature village close to the abbeys of San Benedetto and Santa Scolastica, a few kilometers from Subiaco, nestled on the slopes of the Simbruini mountains. A sort of spiritual union between the places of San Francesco (San Leo) and San Benedetto (Affile), the site of his first miracle.
Method of production
The ancient liqueur tradition has it that the herbs, according to the different recipes, are pounded, crushed and mixed in a mortar. The use of the mortar is of ancient tradition and various materials have been used for its composition over the centuries: hard stone, marble, iron, silver, copper, wood, terracotta, ceramic, bronze. The most used in history was certainly the bronze mortar, which was forged in workshops throughout Europe using the same mold as miniature bells. Today the Leardini Liquorificio uses the same technique! We have a bronze mortar, which we still use, the use of which allows the herbs to retain the intense aromas and beneficial ingredients. Our production is divided into various perfectly studied steps, which ensure that the aromas and natural components remain intact. Above all, we observe the right balsamic time, that is the optimal moment in which the plant reaches its maximum content of substances. Then, through different secret procedures depending on the liqueur to be prepared, we develop the recipe.
The lab
The Liquorificio Artigianale Leardini is located in the historic center of the town of Affile where you can still feel the influence of St. Benedict who worked his first miracle in this place at a very young age.
Affile lives in the shadow of the Benedictine monasteries carved into the rock and built into mighty structures in harmony with nature.
Generations of monks have helped refine products that time has improved. They used only elements that the surrounding nature offered them.