strega

In Benevento, in the Campania region, the legend was old before any distillery opened. Medieval chronicles described a walnut tree at the confluence of the Sabato and Calore rivers where witches gathered at midnight. The inquisitors of the 15th century put women on trial for attending that imaginary tree. The word strega was already a term of accusation before it ever appeared on a bottle.

In 1860, Giuseppe Alberti opened a distillery on Via dei Mulini in Benevento and began producing a liqueur with more than 70 herbs and spices including saffron, mint, and fennel, colored a distinctive yellow by the saffron. He named it Strega: not to celebrate witchcraft, but because Benevento's identity and the word were inseparable. The Alberti family has run the distillery continuously since that year.

The word strega comes from Latin strix (plural striges), a screech owl believed in Roman folklore to drink children's blood. Ovid described striges in the Fasti around 8 CE as birds of night that attacked infants. By the medieval period, strix had narrowed in Italian to mean the human figure of the witch, and strega became the standard feminine form for a woman who practiced malefice.

The Strega Alberti company now also administers Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Premio Strega, awarded annually since 1947. Winners include Elsa Morante in 1957 and Primo Levi, who received a special recognition for Se questo è un uomo. The prize was established by the writer Goffredo Bellonci and his wife Maria, both close to the Alberti family.