Well, who’d have thought that the history of Disaronno would date back to 1525? Well, it was in that year that the artist Bernardino Luini, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, was commissioned to paint a fresco of the Madonna. He chose a beautiful local innkeeper as his muse for the Madonna, and to thank the artist she prepared a special gift which was none other than a flask full of a certain amber liqueur. Allegedly, the recipe is completely unchanged from this moment in 1525.
In 1600, Giovanni Reina rediscovered the innkeeper’s old recipe and began distilling the liqueur once again, with the secret recipe handed down through the generations. In the early 20th century, Domenico Reina opened a shop in Milan called “Domenico Reina Coloniali”, situated in the heart of Saronno. This was the first place that Disaronno Originale was produced and marketed, though the bottle couldn’t be further from the iconic square bottle we recognise today. That design didn’t arrive until 1942, and distinguished the drink from the rest of the market. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Disaronno was first exported to the rest of the world, predominantly the USA.
The product was originally called "Amaretto di Saronno" before it marketed itself in 2001 as the famous "Disaronno Originale." Today, the headquarters are still based in the plant in Saronno and the property is still completely owned by the Reina Family.