Renato Chiappetta, great-grandson of Calabrian immigrant Carlo Chiappetta, grew up surrounded by the liqueur bottles sold at his family's Emporio Chiappetta and later channeled that fascination into his own distillery, named after San Basile. He drew inspiration from the town's Byzantine heritage, noting that the Byzantine Empire fostered centuries of exchange between East and West around botanicals, distillation, medicinal herbs, and alchemy—knowledge he saw as directly tied to the evolution of European distilling.

Building on years of research into ancestral recipes and guarded techniques, Chiappetta now produces his own take on classic spirits, including a French oak–aged Red Bitter (in the tradition made famous by Campari) that's both sweeter and more bitter than the original. His lineup also includes an artichoke liqueur comparable to Cynar, plus the herbal liqueurs Abadia and Bizantino, modeled on France's Chartreuse—crafted after Chiappetta visited the Grande Chartreuse monastery to observe (though not learn the secret recipe of) its centuries-old production process. Rounding out the collection is his Alkermes, a reddish herbal liqueur based on a 1743 formula from Italian Dominican friars.