Vaccari named his creation after Giuseppe Galliano “Maggiore Galliano”, an Italian Hero. “ Over Christmas 1895, during the 1887 - 1896 Italian campaign in Abyssinia he spent 44 days holding the Fort of Enda Jesus against an Abyssinian force of some 80,000 troops. He had a force of 2000 hardy soldiers, meaning he was outnumbered by 40 to 1. Some feat. For his efforts he received an immediate promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, a silver medal from the King and the enduring legacy of having his name on what is a quintessential Italian liqueur. Like all proper heroes he died in battle shortly afterwards and consigned himself to the history books. At the height of Sig. Galliano's fame the son of a successful wine and spirits merchant was working to create his own legacy in the west Italian town of Livorno. Noticing a gap in the market for honouring fallen heroes, Arturo Vaccari set about making a new liqueur at his own distillery, in 1896. He was intent on creating a liqueur with a flavour all of it's own and legend has it that his recipe was based on a homemade liqueur that Galliano always carried into battle. In another stroke of marketing genius, Vaccari decided his liqueur would be golden in colour - to reflect the efforts of Italians trekking to America to make their fortunes in the 1890's gold rushes in California - known to Italians as the Golden State. Galliano peaked in the 1970s when it was America's biggest selling liqueur, no doubt due to a bumbling surf dude called Harvey, who after a few too many Screwdrivers that he had laced with Galliano, found himself bouncing down the hallway to his room. Hence the craze began for that most famous of Galliano cocktails - The Harvey Wallbanger. Arturo Vaccari went to great lengths to choose and blend flavours that reflected the passion, grandeur, artisitic brilliance and sensuality of his country. In all likelihood he experimented with countless combinations of plant ingredients, before he settled on over 30 different herbs, spices, roots, barks and flower seeds. The intricacy of the final recipe remains a guarded secret to this day. In addition, he also originated complex distillation and infusion processes to optimize the intensity of the flavours. No surprise then that all attempts to mimic Galliano have failed. As so often happens, what began as a self-belief, became the belief of many, and today Galliano is celebrated and savoured throughout the world.