Discover Mother Mesccia

This white rum from Velier resurrects the Monégasque tradition of mesccia, born in the era when Genoese sailing ships roamed the Mediterranean basin. The port of Monaco has been a trading hub for over 2,600 years, and in the 17th century was a strategic port of call through which passed goods from around the world, including Caribbean rum. Ligurian sailors traded this rum for local citrus fruits, such as lemons from Menton and Roquebrune, which were essential for staving off the scurvy that threatened any long voyage at sea.

To reduce and flavour this antipodean rum from distant lands, the locals mixed it with fortified wines: vermouth — prized for its bitter herbaceousness — and marsala, which is smooth and oxidised. Mesccia, from the Genoese dialect for ‘mix,’ was born from these blends.

In the 2000s, the Principality sought to bring back this forgotten beverage. The first attempt, made from sugarcane grown and mashed in Spain and shipped to Monaco, did not live up to expectations. Mesccia would remain confined to the archives… until 2021, when Luca Gargano took on the project. Thus, the idea of a 21st century mesccia was born: a rum produced across the fields of Haiti and the streets of Monaco.

The story of this bottling begins in the north of Haiti, in Michel Sajous’ sugarcane fields in Saint-Michel-de-l’Attalaye. The juice of the legendary crystalline is distilled once in Haiti, at the Chelo distillery, before being shipped to the heart of the Principality. There, it undergoes a second pass through the stills of the Monaco distillery, in the neighbourhood of La Condamine.

The first expression, Mother Mesccia will serve as a base for future bottlings, aged in vermouth and marsala casks: a nod to the original recipe born from maritime trade, local crops, and the herbal medicines of centuries past.