IRIS comes from an ancient liquor receipt of Dr. Carlo CECCHERINI, born in 1932, a Tuscan PHARMACIST in Florence, specialized in herbal medicine and nutritionist, a valuer of natural products. 

“My father was an extraordinary man, who spent his life helping to care for people with love, passion and proficiency.

Among the things he left, I could find recipes of natural liquors that he was delighted by making inside the pharmacy. The use of steam to extract essences was primitive but extremely effective.

In order to revive my Father’s memory and his creations, I decided to combine his talent with the purity of our SAN FELICE water and create the LIQUOR “ IRIS”

The preciousness of Iris comes from a great virtue of this plant, patience!
It takes more than seven years to be able to distill its unique essential oil.

The plant completes its life cycle after blooming three times. The extraction process is quite complex. In the summer, the rhizomes (roots) are harvested, cut, cleaned by hand and dried. It takes another three years to bring its properties and dense perfume to life.

The essence of IRIS comes from the ketone irone. The irons can be isolated by steam distillation, but since these compounds are very volatile it is necessary to repeat the distillation to separate them from the rest of the compounds present in the extract. The irons, the molecules of the iris perfume, take long time to form: that’s why the rhizomes of the plant must be dried for more than three years. This incredible extraction process, resulting in a romantic and delicate scent, has turned Iris into one of the most valuable botanical species in the word. You need 500 kg of fresh rhizome to get one liter of essence. A minimum yield and a long and patient work that result in a very precious raw material.