HUNGRY IN RENO • Ferino Distillery

An interview with Joe Cannella, Owner

What made you decide to get into the business of food & drink?

It all started with an exploration of my family name, my last name is Cannella which is the Italian word for cinnamon and my research during a trip to Sicily taught me that the origin of the name was a trade name for a spice merchant, so we weren’t just a cinnamon stick we were in the spice trades.

This and discovering a bottle of rosolio di cannella, a nice cinnamon liqueur, while in Sicily lead me down the path to create a nice, upscale cinnamon liqueur of our own that we could be proud of.

We launched that in late 2014 and shortly after launched an amaro and a fernet.

Bonus Question: Where did your name come from?

Ferino is a fun word, it’s the Italian word for feral or wild and it rolls off the tongue and feels local. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, my wife and her whole family have been in northern Nevada since 1977 and so this was a homecoming for us. For me, northern Nevada, in particular is sort of just wild and free … feral.

Why Reno?

While we launched the spirits business in San Francisco and had success there, we made the decision to move to Reno for family. We had our first daughter in San Francisco and then we found out we were having twins and that sped up our decision. We had been coming back and forth for years, visiting family, so we knew we’d always end up back here. It’s so nice having family around and raising our kids here. It’s a very cool community.

We were also at the point in our company where we felt comfortable that people liked our products and it was time to build something. It seemed like perfect timing … the people here were hungry for new spirits, new food, new flavors.

Hungry Note: They now do all aspects of their business out of Reno, Nevada.

Why are you excited for Reno Restaurant Week?

I don’t get out into the community as much as I’d like and I think this is a great opportunity to change that a little bit. Michael (Moberly) does much of our community outreach so I’m excited to get out and meet some of the other folks around here.

Also, here at Ferino, I’m excited to introduce folks to what we are doing and for people to come and see our district.

What is one think you’d like your guests to know about you and/or your establishment?

It’s 100% family owned and operated. Also, we are manufacturing liquid hand sanitizer and we’ve been able to serve quite a bit of the community from health organizations to local businesses. As long as the FDA allows us to make it and sell it, we will have it in stock.