Any child growing up with Abruzzese parents in Australia in the 1970s would recognise this green bottle wrapped in raffia. Whenever a relative returned from Abruzzo they brought Centerba as a gift and with it, a connection to the homeland.

What is Centerba?

Centerba is a well-known Abruzzese liquor that translates as ‘100 herbs’. It is made by infusing aromatic herbs and medicinal plants.  With an alcohol content of 70%, it is definitely not for the faint hearted. Traditionally, it is taken as a digestive after meals and is used to “correggere” (to correct) the coffee by adding a splash of liquor.

Photo credit: A7N8X, Wikimedia Commons

Origins: Monks, Mountains and a Pharmacist

Centerba’s origins lie in the Benedictine monasteries of the Majella and Morrone mountains, in particular the Abbey of San Clemente. For centuries, the monks gathered and cultivated medicinal herbs along the mountain slopes. This was a tradition dating back to early monastic life, when monasteries served as centres of healing and botanical knowledge.

In the early 1800s, a pharmacist named Beniamino Toro, moved to Tocco da Casauria in Abruzzo. Benedictine monks passed the herbal recipe down through the centuries and Toro recognised its potential. Toro refined the process and distilled the ‘100’ herbs into the liquor we know today as Centerba. ¹

National Recognition and Awards

By the mid-1800s, Centerba had gained national recognition as a liquor. At the prestigious Public Exhibition of Arts and Manufacturing in Naples, Toro earned a Silver Medal for his samples of “refined and drinkable Centerba”. ². More awards soon followed in Naples in 1839 and 1846, London in 1862 and Dublin in 1865. ³

A Royal Encounter: King Vittorio Emanuele II drinks Centerba

As Centerba’s reputation grew, it found its way into a pivotal moment in Italian history. In 1860, during the Italian Reunification (Risorgimento), King Vittorio Emanuele II stopped briefly in Tocco and drank Centerba on his way to the famous meeting at Teano with Giuseppe Garibaldi. Locals had prepared a refreshment area “with sweets and rosoli, an abundance of round confetti from Sulmona and the characteristic straw-wrapped bottles of Centerba” (“con dolci e rosoli e profusione di confetti tondi di Sulmona e di caratteristiche bottiglie impagliate di centerba’’). Without dismounting from his horse, the King accepted the confetti and Centerba before continuing on to Popoli. ⁴

Centerba in Times of Pandemics

Although best known today as an alcoholic drink, Centerba has also had a long life as a medicinal remedy. During the cholera outbreak that struck Naples in 1836, it was used to ease nausea and was believed to offer protection against the disease. Carts left Tocco for Naples each day loaded with Centerba as demand surged with the spread of the epidemic. In one scene in The Last Ninety Days of 1836 – Cholera in Naples (1837), an acquavitaro (street seller of liquors) serves a man “a large glass of strong Centerba’, to calm his nerves. ⁵ Other sources also highlight the use of Centerba during the cholera pandemic. ⁶

Nearly one hundred years later, Centerba appeared again during a pandemic. This time it was used as a disinfectant spray in the fight against COVID. ⁷

A Tradition That Endures

From humble beginnings on the slopes of the Majella and Morrone mountains, where Benedictine monks gathered herbs, Centerba has taken an unexpected path. Its one hundred herbs and that unmistakable green bottle have become an award-winning liquor and a trusted remedy in times of crisis. But for migrant Abruzzese families, that little green bottle carries, above all, a connection to home.

1. About us – Liquori Toro
2. Elenco di saggi de prodotti della industria napolitana presentati nella solenne mostra del di 30 maggio (Dalla tipografia Elantina,1842), 12
3. Paolo Mantegazza, Quadri della natura umana feste ed ebbrezze (G. Bernardoni, 1871), 79
4. Eugeni Franco and Gliatta Giuseppe, Luci ed Ombre del viaggio di Vittorio Emanuel II verso l’unità d’Italia (Teramo: Zikkurat, 2011), p 35
5. Bidera,Giovanni Emanuele: Gli ultimi novanta giorni del 1836, ossia, Il colera in Napoli p 102.
6. Raffaele Torchia, Proposizioni di medicina pratica sul colera morbo desunte dall’osservazione della malattia nella sua seconda invasione in Napoli nel 1837 (), 18 and Christian Pfeufer, Metodo igienico da serbarsi durante l’epidemia del colera memoria scritta sull’epidemia del 1849 (G. Nobile, 1854), 8
7. Dall’Abruzzo ecco lo spray anti coronavirus alla Centerba… Usato anche ai tempi del colera (abruzzolive.tv)