Hotel Starlino

Hotel Starlino is a bright, fun, and bartender-friendly range of Italian aperitivos that boasts stylish packaging and interesting production choices, like a bourbon-cask Vermouth Rosso or a grapefruit-scented Rosé. The brains behind the brand is Elwyn Gladstone. You might not have heard of him, but you will have drunk something he has worked on. He’s not a distiller or a blender, instead he’s the person who supplied the marketing magic behind brands including Sailor Jerry, Hendrick’s Gin, and Kraken Rum. He worked in-house at global multinationals before forming his own company Biggar & Leith which had a notable hit with Malfy Gin which launched in 2017. Last year, he sold the brand to Pernod Ricard. Hotel Starlino is made in collaboration with the same people Gladstone worked on Malfy with, the Vergnano Family, who run the Torino Distillati, an old Italian distillery and bottler. We think this brand will do very well thanks to the Gladstone method: making interesting brands with really nice, easy-to-drink, high-quality liquids and making a story around them that will hopefully interest consumers and grow the category overall.