edited by Chiara Mariani
It is known that sometimes things that are born for fun take unexpected directions. So begins the story of Amaro Canajaa simple idea to survive a difficult time, turned into a company by the right intuition of brothers Lorenzo and Andrea Ranieri.
We are at Senigallia, an Adriatic town halfway between Pesaro and the Conero. Famous for its seaside rotunda (yes, the one in the song), for being home to two great starred names of Italian cuisine, Mauro Uliassi and Moreno Cedroni, and for hosting for decades the international festival of 40s and 50s music Summer Jumboree.
Lorenzo and Andrea are the historic owners of 'Caf the game got seriouso' and evolved into what has become a product that can tell the story of a place: Amaro Canaja, the bitter of Senigallia.
Your idea was born at a time of general difficulty, when making plans and looking to the future was not easy. What were the events that led to the birth of Amaro Canaja?
Lorenzo: "During the first lockdown we created the 'Spirit Flask', take-away drinks sold inside sterilised flasks from the pharmacy, partly to survive the lockdown and partly to distribute alcoholic happiness to our customers. The project was working and we considered continuing it post-emergency, but during a chat with the man who would become our producer, we reasoned on another direction. Having run the Caffè del Corso for 13 years, we noticed that there was a strong demand from the tourist market for a typical city product to take home as a souvenir. So we decided to create a bitter that, if not through its ingredients, at least through the story it tells, could represent Senigallia.
There is a saying here that goes 'Senigaja, half Jew and half canaja', which originates from the edict issued by Sigismondo Malatesta at the end of the 15th century, when the malarial plague had infested the city and decimated the population. The edict gave freedom back to the ex-convicts, the canaje, to restore labour to the now-empty city where the Jewish community in particular had survived. We then involved the local community to develop the brand; the face on the label, representative of the modern canaja, was designed by the local tattoo artist
Jacopo Pierfederici, aka Jaia. The logo was then taken care of by a young graphic designer from Senigallia working in Milan, Alessandro Onori. Even the photographs and videos we are making are done by young people from here. We started off with a small production to test on our customers and gave 150 bottles to bars and restaurants in the city to collect
the first feedback on the product. To date we are at about 10k bottles per year."
How did you define the right mix of flavours and recipe for Amaro Canaja?
Andrea: "We went to our producer with a clear idea of the product's main characteristics thanks to the feedback we gathered during a decade behind the bar, listening to customers' tastes and needs. In recent years, the Moscow Mule has been the most popular drink, so it was important for us to have ginger, while, with the help of our barman Alessandro Postacchini, we opted for lemon, cloves, allspice and bergamot as other botanicals. Once we gave these guidelines to Marasco Liquori, they created the official recipe. We are the brand creators and the marketing side, but they are the producers, who have been making liqueurs for more than 50 years."
Your product has a double soul like the city, whether smooth or mixed. How do you propose it?
Andrea: "Amaro Canaja can be offered both in the classic bitter and in mixed drinks. We have come up with a simple drink list because we want it to be offered both in bars, which offer sophisticated mixing, and in places which, offering a simpler list, do not have certain products in the bottle. The basic list includes the Canaja Tonic, Canaja Spritz, Conte Canaja, which is a reinterpretation of the Negroni, Canaja Mule and Canaja Sour."
Lorenzo: "For us bartenders, it is nice to see how each colleague uses it differently; there are those who combine it with less common ingredients such as foams and those who experiment to create a drink tailored to the specific properties of the bitter and to their audience. There is also a local chef who has used it to make a dessert, an ice-cream parlour that has turned it into gelato."
After two years of project start-up, what is the feedback from the market and future plans?
Andrea: "We currently supply bars and restaurants in several regions, from Val d'Aosta to Sicily. We try to tell people about the product and the use that can be made of it at the counter, we aim to be competitive in terms of bottle and shipping costs, and to provide as much free material as possible to bars to advertise and propose it. For the same reason, we have created three formats: the classic 70cl, which is usually on display in bottle banks; a smaller 20cl format that is perfect for wine shops and small retailers local food and wine. It is affordable and can be the perfect gift to bring back after the holidays as a souvenir; finally we have the 2lt designed for restaurants serving it as a
after dinner."
Lorenzo: "In Senigallia, success was almost immediate because it is a product closely linked to the city, but we also want to establish ourselves outside our territory. We are entering the foreign market and after a lot of red tape we have managed to ship to Canada, Spain and France. Just recently we have also received requests from Germany. We were also a guest at a trade fair in London last summer, so for the second birthday of production we are satisfied. Working on the project, we discovered that there are many small realities similar to ours throughout Italy that wish to make their territory known by linking it to a product. For us, Amaro Canaja is a way to tell something more about the town we come from and to offer those who pass through here a product that will remind them of their stay. Having involved only local people to create the project, when we look at the bottle we see Senigallia and we hope it is the same for those who buy it."
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