Wild and cultivated plants used in traditional alcoholic beverages in Italy: an ethnobotanical review

This study aims to gather, analyze, and discuss the ethnobotanical information regarding wild and cultivated plants used in traditional alcoholic beverages in Italy. The online literature search allowed data collection from 161 articles concerning the use of wild and cultivated plants in Italy for liqueurs preparation. Overall, we identified 130 taxa belonging to 35 families, among them Rosaceae is the most cited (21.4%) followed by Asteraceae (14.3%), Lamiaceae (12.7%), Apiaceae and Pinaceae (5.6% each). Tuscany (N=49), Friuli Venezia Giulia (N=46) and Lombardy (N=36) show the largest number of species used in a single region. The common use of liqueurs as aperitif and digestive is also discussed. This work increases the ethnobotanical data of traditional alcoholic beverages from Italy, till now not well explored. This study can be the basis for future research on the supposed bioactivity and toxicity of alcoholic beverages.