Podcast Summary:
“Anyway, I’ll Drink to That” is a Boozn Sam’s production, exploring the fun, quirky, and fascinating tales of drinks (Disaronno in this episode) that define culture, history and the world. Every drink has a story to tell, and I’m going to tell it…as true as I can. Hosted by Sam, from Boozn Sam’s. Saddle up with a good cocktail and give me a few minutes of your time for a mystery surrounding a drink that changed the world.
Episode 36 Notes: Trade Secrets
A famous painter walked into a small, Italian town and walked away with a taste of a famous drink. But, try as he might, he couldn’t pry the recipe away from the hands of the Madonna. Trade Secrets could kill, and she wasn’t about to give up her what she knew that easily. Good thing too, because 400 years later, her secret turned into something magic.
Transcript of Podcast:
*Note – This is the full episode and containers spoilers. You can always listen to the podcast above.
He needed a woman like he needed a meal. He was starving for it. But, not in the way you’re likely thinking. What he needed was not just any woman. He needed his Madonna.
And she entered the room and stood there in a long, blue flowing robe that was lined on the inside with golden fabric. Her hair was tied up in a long braid that fell past her shoulder blades and her golden hair shone in the sunlight. But, it was her face that struck him. The skin soft and fair, her jawline rounded and subtle. Her eyes just as soft as the rest of her face, looking out at him with a gaze that seemed to look straight through him.
And he was just a simple Italian from the North here to capture the miracle worker. He had gotten very lucky in life, and had attached himself to someone very famous. Someone he admired highly. Someone that had used his curious and powerful mind to unlocked secrets of the world. He did not have that mind, but he did have direct training from that mind. He did have some of his skills. He could paint, for instance, which is why he’s the painter in our story.
The painter found Madonna at an Inn and she was sitting there now, her head turned slightly to the side, her gaze a thousand miles long, letting him take charcoal to paper and locking the shape of her into the pages of history.
This city has always had a special place with Madonna and years ago they sought to do her homage by building a monument in her honor. The Madonna has always held a place of reverence in Western Traditions. She is many things. She is the mother of Jesus. While being a single parent is more accepted today, during the time she lived in, the purity of a woman within marriage was judged by her virginity. Being pregnant and without a husband was a cultural black stain.
The Madonna is also a miracle worker. She has appeared in many ways in many times to heal and help. Once she appeared as the Black Madonna to save a monastery from a siege in Sweden. Other times she’s appeared as a vision and imbued individuals with powers of healing.
So, to paint The Madonna was a great honor, but not an unsurprising one for someone like our Italian painter, who was commission to paint a fresco for the sanctuary of a church in Northern Italy.
This monument to Madonna would be filled with statues and frescos of her. That was in the 1480’s. It was 1525 now. And this was not the real Madonna, the mother of Jesus. Because that was a different time, many centuries before this time. So, the painter had to find someone else to be his Madonna. He found an innkeeper, a woman from town that he thought looked like the image of Madonna he had in his head.
The more strokes he made on the page the more impressed he was with this innkeeper and the way she exhibited the traits and feel of The Madonna he wanted to create. Because for this painter, it wasn’t about trying, it was about knowing what he wanted and then doing it.
This was an unprecedented time in the history of the world, similar to a period like Le Bella Epoque, which was the subject of episode 21. This was the high Renaissance, an age of creativity, thought, innovation, and an example of what’s capable when humans think and do, not think and try.
And right now, the painter was doing very well. He was happy with the way his fresco was taking shape, and he was complimenting his model. She was blushing. She was embarrassed and humbled that a protege to the great Leonardo Da Vinci would think so highly of her. But, our painter, Bernardino Luini, was telling the truth. He’d worked with a lot of models too.
After studying under Da Vinci, Luini started painting frescoes on his own. He’d been doing it for almost 30 years on his own at this point by the time he made his way to this small Italian town and found his Madonna at an unsuspecting, and humble inn.
But, this inn had secrets too. Trade secrets that are still secrets today. When our model was blushing with all the praise from Luini she rewarded him for providing the honor of being forever immortalized in one of his work of arts, and for such a high purpose as replicating The Madonna herself, that she made for him a family drink. It was a small act of gratitude. A mark of kindness for the favor shown on her. A flask of this dark, amber drink.
The drink was thick and smooth, but tasted floral and light. It had an almost…nutty quality about it. Luini loved it so much he immediately begged her for the recipe to the drink. This was a request that, although Luini was famous and had done her such great honor, she simply could not do.
This was a time of trade secrets and gilds. A time before corporations and their staunch defense intellectual property (IP), but not a time before IP existing. It just existed in different form.
If you knew how to do something that others did not, or if you had a recipe that others did not, you kept that shit a secret. Because it was worth money, and even if the system in place wasn’t capitalism at this time, the way human nature has always aligned is with capitalistic principles.
You see, we like to think that we’re living under a revolutionary system of principles, but what originally made The United States a revolutionary concept was the alignment of human nature, economics, and politics. At one point, the system was human because it was actually modeled after who humans were and not some unreaching, on paper ideal that never works in reality.
IP is a great example of this human nature, because even in 1525 our lovely innkeeper Madonna refused to share the recipe for the delicious drink she shared with Leonardo Da Vinci’s protege because she knew one very important thing that we still know today. Your value, always, is in what you can uniquely contribute to the system. We are social creatures so it makes sense that there is an entire dimension of us, our external side, that derives value from our relationship to the external world. And, this external world, it turns out, has a heck of a lot to do with the internal world too. Because, if you feel like everyone in the tribe is supporting the tribe and helping it succeed, and you’re not…well, you’re going to feel like shit about that.
So, aside from people paying you for your IP, your external value is how you, as a human derive a ton of your value. Throughout all of history the world has valued the unique skills, the exceptional qualities, the uncommon. That idea is deeply ingrained into the fabric of humans too because skills have always paid the bills. Sometimes it was literal bills. Other times it was food on the table or healthy kids and a thriving tribe. Still, other times, it was a drink.
This time, for our The Innkeeper Madonna, it was a drink. And she kept her secret because secrets were so closely guarded that guilds would actually kill members who shared their secrets. Not only would they kill the member, but they’d kill the people who the secret was shared with too. If you were sharing a secret, you were sharing livelihood, and that is something people have always taken seriously. Livelihood is money. Livelihood is identity. Livelihood is the future generation.
And the trade secret of the Innkeeper Madonna, who lived in 1525, was passed down generation by generation for almost 400 years. A secret kept for almost 400 years. Imagine that. Can you?
When’s the last time you kept a secret for longer than a few years? Hell, a few weeks? Or a day, even? We’re an overshare society and nothing is sacred anymore.
But, the secret recipe for this drink she served Luini has stayed in the Reina’s family since then. The most amazing thing is that the recipe was lost for a time within the inn itself, until the 1600’s when a family member found the recipe and hopped on the trend going around during that time of families distilling liquor.
They brought the drink back. Resurrected the recipe like working up a little Jesus or Madonna miracle. From there the recipe and the distilling was passed down through the generations until the early 20th century. The living Reina at that time finally made the decision to open a store just to sell the drink. Since, contrary to what you might think, business is hard, the drink didn’t have any of the usual flair that it’s known for today.
The drink that survived for 375 years, given as a humble gift of gratitude to a famous painter, lost for a spell, passed down generation to generation, was put out into the world for all to buy in a wine bottle with a crudely done paper label, and a shitty, unoriginal name.
But, in time, that would change too, and the drink would take on the more famous design it has now. It would keep it’s shitty name too, but the shit would wash away with fame and leave behind a drink that was recognized worldwide.
Before that time, we have the bottle. We have another work of art, another artist. This one not a fresco painter and not trained by Leonardo Da Vinci. This one a master glass blower, who would take the iconic bottle they rolled out in the 1940’s and add the last, final touch that would make the bottle itself a masterpiece.
He made a handcrafted bottle with a soft sparkle. It’s this design that is now recognized as what we think of today for this brand.
That, and the fact that unlike other drinks of its type it actually doesn’t include the key ingredient all of the other drinks of this type include – almond. Or maybe it does. I don’t know that for sure, because the secret to this drink is still a family trade secret. No one knows the recipe outside of the family still today. Over 4 centuries later. Now that’s a secret people have taken to the grave. Literally.
And this drink, well it’s truly a work of art, birthed in gratitude and kindness…
and each sip tastes like a warm hug,
Served straight from the bottle, which is a handcrafted work of art in and of itself…
Disaronno
A drink from the year 1525, perfected as a gift to a famous painter that has works through out all of Italy, but a small town innkeeper who was so honored to be the frame of reference for his Madonna painting.
Still, with a shitty name that isn’t a work of art, but sounds fancy because it’s foreign.
An amaretto “From Saronno.”
Or, as it’s said in Italian “Di Saronno.”
The testament to trade secrets and proof that good things come to those that keep their mouths shut and act with kindness and gratitude in the world… even if it takes 4 centuries to see the results.
Anyway… I’ll drink to that.