In 1994, Charlie Manno was assigned to entertain two Italian priests on a trip to Chicago. When the Rocky River man took the priests to the airport after their visit, they wanted to reward his kindness. So, Father Franco Todisco pulled out a notepad and wrote down an old family recipe for infusing lemon and coffee liqueurs.

Manno thought nothing of it. Then, that Christmas he decided to make a batch of the lemon liqueur, in his basement. Using 10, 750ml bottles of high-proof neutral grain spirits he tried the proprietary infusion method. “Forty days went by and I tasted it,” Manno recalls. “It was unbelievable.”