Don Ciccio & Figli
Washington, D.C.
Gioite tutti! Il Don è rinato! Rejoice all! The Don is born again! This is what the people of Amalfi said to Francesco “Ciccio” Amodeo when he returned to the old country, opened his suitcases and served them the best Italian liqueurs they’d ever tasted, distilled in Washington D.C.
Despite the histrionics, the locals were not entirely surprised. They remembered the life of Francesco’s great grandfather, Amodeo. They knew the story of the family’s craft and remembered how the business thrived from 1883 until The Great War, when the recipes were forced underground. In the new dawn: Don Ciccio SR. and Giovanni Porpora built a magnificent distillery from scratch that thrived and grew, until the earthquake of Irpina. The earth opening up, swallowing groves of lemon trees whole, reducing the distillery to rubble.
Yet, they could feel a third coming of the Don’s liqueurs. They knew the Amodeos had a taste for comebacks and so today, we raise our glasses at the shout of Salute, and sip to commemorate the bitter and the sweet of this epic tale. When the people of Amalfi tasted our liqueurs, they said “it has happened again.” Don Ciccio & Figli has traversed the oceans and is reborn in the USA.
