The team behind much-loved Freddy’s Pizza in the Melbourne suburb of Windsor has launched Tommy’s Booze a new liqueur brand featuring Limoncello, Mandarino and Lampone – that are made locally in Melbourne and available nationally.
The brainchild of Dan Leuzzi and Tom Giurioli, Tommy’s Booze was born out of lockdowns and the Freddy’s Pizza kitchen back in 2021, with Giurioli, getting the idea after a customer dropped off a bag of lemons from her backyard.
“After word of mouth started spreading, we noticed that the current limoncello offerings in Australia were imported. We knew we could make delicious tasting booze with just a few simple ingredients,” Leuzzi said.
Having grown to a size that outweighs their friend’s lemon tree, Tommy’s Booze sources ‘ugly’ lemons and fruits from Victoria and Queensland that don’t make it onto shelves but are perfectly edible.
Taking a couple of months from start to finish to create a bottle, Giurioli first peels the fruit by hand and then passes it over to a local Melbourne distillery, who turn it into Limoncello by infusing the lemon rind for five weeks to extract alcohol, which is then mixed with sugar syrup and left to rest in a dark place for two more weeks.
Since that first Limoncello batch, the range has grown to include three permanent flavours; Limoncello 32 per cent ABV, Mandarino (Mandarin) 32 per cent ABV, and Lampone (Raspberry) 27 per cent ABV, with Tommy’s Booze spritz cans of all three flavours in the pipeline to launch this summer.
Tommy’s Booze is currently available at Blackhearts and Sparrows and through the Tommy’s Booze website, with the Limoncello set to launch in First Choice Liquor Market stores in August and is available wholesale at $45.