L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano I n Calabria, on a hot s u m m e r a f t e r n o o n , one of the most nat- ural things to reach for is a dark brown bottle of Brasilena: a cold, lightly sparkling soft drink that tastes, of all things, of coffee. To anyone meeting it for the first time, the idea may sound strange, yet here, in the punta dello Stivale, it could not be more ordinary, as much a part of summer as the heat itself. We all know that Italy has never been short of famous things to drink: in the end, we gave the world espresso and vermouth, amaro and a l o n g p a r a d e o f r e g i o n a l sodas, each one tied to its own town and its own mem- ory. Yet among all of them, Brasilena remains one of the most curious and one of the least known once you travel beyond the South. The idea alone may raise an eyebrow here and there because cof- fee, in Italy, means the small hot cup taken standing at the bar, while a soda belongs to another world entirely. A cof- fee soda – chilled and fizzing, of all things! – in the land of the sacred espresso? A n d y e t t h a t i s e x a c t l y what it is. Pour it out and you find a dark, lightly fizzing liquid made (according to a recipe said never to have changed) f r o m l i g h t l y m i n e r a l i z e d oligominerale water, sugar, a generous infusion of roasted coffee, around twelve percent of the whole, then carbon dioxide and natural flavor- ings. It is not coffee, though, and it is not cola, even if peo- ple reaching for a compari- son usually mention both: what you taste instead is the roasted punch of the bean softened by something like cocoa and hazelnut, all of it lifted by the sweetness and the gentle sparkle you would want from a drink on a hot day. When it comes to its origin story, it's right to say that it fully belongs to Calabria, and m o r e p r e c i s e l y t o t h e province of Catanzaro. The drink is bottled in Giri- falco by a company called A c q u a C a l a b r i a , w h i c h draws its mineral water, which is also used for its soft drinks, from Monte Covel- lo, a green height of around 8 5 0 m e t e r s t h a t r i s e s between the two coasts, with the Ionian on one side and the Tyrrhenian on the other, a n d a i r r e c k o n e d t o b e a m o n g t h e c l e a n e s t i n Europe. To understand how it came to be, we have to go back a little, to a region that always loved its coffee but also suffers ferocious sum- mers, and where the idea of drinking that beloved flavor ice-cold and with bubbles was always going to find tak- ers. This must have been the thought of Cesare Cristo- f a r o w h e n , b a c k i n t h e 1 9 3 0 s , h e w o u l d p r e p a r e drinks by hand in his empo- rio at Monte Covello. Among them, alongside a couple of curiosities he called ARAN- sud and LIMONsud, a sim- p l e g a z z o s a a l c a f f è , r o a s t e d c o f f e e i n f u s e d i n sparkling water, which he sold loose and with no label at all. It was his son Salva- t o r e w h o , i n t h e 1 9 6 0 s , opened the Acqua Calabria bottling plant and, for the f i r s t t i m e , r e g i s t e r e d t h e name Brasilena, but it was o n l y a f t e r t h e p l a n t w a s enlarged in 1982 that the d r i n k f i n a l l y r e a c h e d t h e market in the form we know today and became, almost overnight, a small social phenomenon. The name itself is a clear nod to the history of coffee itself, of which Brazil has long been one of the main producers. Many regional products n e v e r l e a v e h o m e , b u t Brasilena, little by little, did, slipping first beyond its own province and then beyond Italy altogether. Those dark bottles turn up across the South, of course, but also in Switzerland, Germany, and Britain, and farther still in the United States, Canada, and Australia: anywhere, really, a Calabrian commu- nity wants them. It is one of t h e t h i n g s t h a t n e v e r g o m i s s i n g f r o m t h e f a m o u s p a c c o d a g i ù , t h e p a r c e l "from down south" that fam- i l i e s p o s t t o r e l a t i v e s f a r away, and one of the first things people carry home after a summer in Calabria. Here in the United States, you will not find it in ordi- nary supermarkets, but it turns up easily enough in Italian delis, Calabrian gro- ceries, and online – even through the American arm of Caffè Guglielmo, the very roaster behind the cof- fee used to make it. One more thought should be added about its populari- ty: part of why Brasilena remains so famous and icon- ic is that … it never had to fight anyone. It does not set itself against espresso, and it d o e s n o t p r e t e n d t o b e a fruit soda, so it has simply g o n e o n b e i n g i t s e l f i n a market otherwise ruled by e n o r m o u s m u l t i n a t i o n a l names. Its roots in Calabria, meanwhile, have only deep- e n e d , i f y o u t h i n k t h a t G a m b e r o R o s s o , t h e famous Italian food publica- t i o n , c o u n t s B r a s i l e n a a m o n g I t a l y ' s P A T , t h e P r o d o t t i A g r o a l i m e n t a r i Tradizionali, the official roll of traditional foods tied to a particular territory. A pretty notable thing for a soda, and a sign of how thoroughly it s e t t l e d i n t o t h e r e g i o n ' s table. Today, Brasilena's local character still runs all the way through, with its water s t i l l c o m i n g f r o m M o n t e Covello, and the coffee for t h e i n f u s i o n f r o m a chilometro zero company, Caffè Guglielmo, which is j u s t d o w n t h e r o a d a t Copanello. If you were look- ing for a small ecosystem of regional producers, here it is. Always bottled without preservatives, in glass or in cans, in a plant that runs on green energy, Brasilena's numbers stay modest by the measure of global soda-mak- ing giants: recent accounts speak of around two million bottles a year, a fraction of what the multinationals it shares a shelf with pour out in a morning. But that's, in fact, the point: a reminder that a local product can keep its place in the world with- out ever pretending to be something bigger. GIULIA FRANCESCHINI Brasilena, the sparkling coffee from a small town near Catanzaro HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS Brasilena, the coffee-based sparkling soft drink created in Calabria, has become one of southern Italy's most distinctive regional beverages; bottom left: for many Calabrians, enjoying a chilled Brasilena on a café patio is a familiar summer ritual (Image generated using Adobe Illustrator AI)

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