Distillerie Tuoni & Canepa Srl

Status: Closed & redeveloped

Established: 1938

Owner: Sazerac Company Inc.

Capacity: No longer operational

Visitor Policy: Not open to public

Tel: Not supplied

Founded in Livorno in 1938 by Alfredo Neri for his two sons-in-law, Gaetano Tuoni and Giorgio Canepa, Distillerie Tuoni e Canepa closed on 31st March 2010. The “Distillerie”, actually more a compounders than a ‘distillery’, was situated in the coastal town of Livorno in Italy’s Tuscany region.

Tuoni e Canepa made a handful of products but only one sold in any volume outside the region, Tuaca. This was imported to the USA in the 1960s where sales grew to such a degree that it became of interest to the mighty Kentucky-based Brown-Forman (owner of Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort) who initially bought a 45% stake in the brand before eventually taking it over completely with the company that made it in 2003 in a US$40 million deal.

After accessing the other products Tuoni & Canepa made, Brown-Forman probably rightly concluded that Tuaca was the only product with an international future and so discontinued them. Why risk cross contamination of pipes and tanks when only one product has any significant volume? With sales so heavily US biased it is perhaps not surprising that further rationalisation eventually saw production of Tuaca move to the States in 2010 leading to the closure of the Italian production facility.

Tuaca was purchased by the Sazerac Company in 2016.