Company History
Today I'll tell you a story. The story of my company, which is also my family.
The Russo Distillery was born in Santa Venerina at the foot of Etna in 1870 .
Currently, even if not everyone knows it, it is the last distillery in Sicily to distil pure alcohol, brandy, grappa and fruit spirits at the historic establishment. All 100% Sicilian products.
With a load of over a hundred years of experience, in 2020 the company, which the majority of the public knows for the production of liqueurs, put its historical soul of Distillery at the service by contributing, through the supply of ethyl alcohol, to a project linked to the COVID19 emergency developed with great humanity by the University of Catania. The University has explicitly requested non-denatured alcohol, aware that the denaturants used in most of the products on the market are diluents derived from petroleum. For this reason, it obtained an extraordinary authorization from the Catania Customs Office, which played a truly essential and very important role in facilitating the procedure in record time.
At the beginning of phase 2, the Russo Distillery decides with initiative and entrepreneurial transport, to create a new company branch, called Russosan , dedicated to the production of natural sanitizers for the person and for surfaces .
However, it does so with the aim of differentiating itself from the mare magnum of products existing on the market by means of an innovative product that could reconcile the need to use alcohol free from excise duty restrictions and that of not contaminating it with often toxic and bad-smelling denaturants.
Thus it can reach everyone: to those who cannot buy pure alcohol because it is too expensive due to the excise duty and to those who cannot use chemicals on the skin because it is delicate: children, the elderly, the immunosuppressed.
It therefore enters this new market with an original product: Prontigen , a sanitizer consisting of alcohol with menthol at 75 degrees .
Prontigen is a spray and this makes it practical, suitable for the hectic needs of today's life. When Prontigen was born, I confess to you, I was immediately aware of the countless advantages we would have in using natural menthol crystals. The most important, as a mother, was the possibility, by no means trivial, of using Prontigen directly on food wrappers. Nebulized and immediately evaporated, the alcohol left no residue on the delicate hands of Giuseppe and Camillo and not even on the packet of Pavesini that we carried with us as a snack during some outings.
With the ambitious goal of entering health facilities, schools, public administrations, the company decides at this point to also supply nebulizer dispensers suitable for dispensing the product. It was not easy to find photoptic cell dispensers, nebulizers then… it seemed really impossible! But I wanted nebulizers, at any cost. And I made the nebulizers.
Prontigen's nebulization was really practical, fast, effective, unlike any sticky, smelly and aggressive gel on the market.
At this point, eager to meet, mainly the needs of the little ones and of all categories of people who are looking for a product based on a naturally treated alcohol in a sanitizer, Russosan deepens the research and, after several tests, arrives to the multi-surface version , which combines the sanitizing power of mentholated alcohol at 75 degrees with the cleaning effectiveness of natural ingredients . Prontigen multisurfaces can be used on canteen tables, headboards, classroom desks and does not require rinsing (for those who, like me, don't have much time).
The consumer who has known the history of the Russo Distillery for 150 years, knows he can trust Prontigen, because in a sanitizer, the most important element is alcohol and we have been doing it as it should be, natural, for a century and a half. !
From 3 September Prontigen you can find it in the supermarkets of the Arena Deco 'Group and in all those shopkeepers who enthusiastically accepted my entrepreneurial challenge. Prontigen will also be in your and my children's classrooms.
I am very tired because in a few months a completely new, unexpected branch of the company came to life, which overwhelmed me and introduced me to extraordinary people, but I am also happy because everything that is Prontigen is made in Sicily, in our land and gives work to many clean realities of the area.
Moreover, with every flask sold in schools, communities, kindergartens, we are also able to help Telethon, by donating € 1 per bin for research on rare diseases.
At this point I show you the photo of my beloved Distillation Alembic, whose tallest column, of the 7 that make it up, measures about 30 meters. It is 150 years old, but still manages to produce 800 liters of pure alcohol per hour.
Prontigen was born in this monument of Sicilian history!
Anna Maria Maugeri
The Russo Distillery was born in Santa Venerina at the foot of Etna in 1870 .
Currently, even if not everyone knows it, it is the last distillery in Sicily to distil pure alcohol, brandy, grappa and fruit spirits at the historic establishment. All 100% Sicilian products.
With a load of over a hundred years of experience, in 2020 the company, which the majority of the public knows for the production of liqueurs, put its historical soul of Distillery at the service by contributing, through the supply of ethyl alcohol, to a project linked to the COVID19 emergency developed with great humanity by the University of Catania. The University has explicitly requested non-denatured alcohol, aware that the denaturants used in most of the products on the market are diluents derived from petroleum. For this reason, it obtained an extraordinary authorization from the Catania Customs Office, which played a truly essential and very important role in facilitating the procedure in record time.
At the beginning of phase 2, the Russo Distillery decides with initiative and entrepreneurial transport, to create a new company branch, called Russosan , dedicated to the production of natural sanitizers for the person and for surfaces .
However, it does so with the aim of differentiating itself from the mare magnum of products existing on the market by means of an innovative product that could reconcile the need to use alcohol free from excise duty restrictions and that of not contaminating it with often toxic and bad-smelling denaturants.
Thus it can reach everyone: to those who cannot buy pure alcohol because it is too expensive due to the excise duty and to those who cannot use chemicals on the skin because it is delicate: children, the elderly, the immunosuppressed.
It therefore enters this new market with an original product: Prontigen , a sanitizer consisting of alcohol with menthol at 75 degrees .
Prontigen is a spray and this makes it practical, suitable for the hectic needs of today's life. When Prontigen was born, I confess to you, I was immediately aware of the countless advantages we would have in using natural menthol crystals. The most important, as a mother, was the possibility, by no means trivial, of using Prontigen directly on food wrappers. Nebulized and immediately evaporated, the alcohol left no residue on the delicate hands of Giuseppe and Camillo and not even on the packet of Pavesini that we carried with us as a snack during some outings.
With the ambitious goal of entering health facilities, schools, public administrations, the company decides at this point to also supply nebulizer dispensers suitable for dispensing the product. It was not easy to find photoptic cell dispensers, nebulizers then… it seemed really impossible! But I wanted nebulizers, at any cost. And I made the nebulizers.
Prontigen's nebulization was really practical, fast, effective, unlike any sticky, smelly and aggressive gel on the market.
At this point, eager to meet, mainly the needs of the little ones and of all categories of people who are looking for a product based on a naturally treated alcohol in a sanitizer, Russosan deepens the research and, after several tests, arrives to the multi-surface version , which combines the sanitizing power of mentholated alcohol at 75 degrees with the cleaning effectiveness of natural ingredients . Prontigen multisurfaces can be used on canteen tables, headboards, classroom desks and does not require rinsing (for those who, like me, don't have much time).
The consumer who has known the history of the Russo Distillery for 150 years, knows he can trust Prontigen, because in a sanitizer, the most important element is alcohol and we have been doing it as it should be, natural, for a century and a half. !
From 3 September Prontigen you can find it in the supermarkets of the Arena Deco 'Group and in all those shopkeepers who enthusiastically accepted my entrepreneurial challenge. Prontigen will also be in your and my children's classrooms.
I am very tired because in a few months a completely new, unexpected branch of the company came to life, which overwhelmed me and introduced me to extraordinary people, but I am also happy because everything that is Prontigen is made in Sicily, in our land and gives work to many clean realities of the area.
Moreover, with every flask sold in schools, communities, kindergartens, we are also able to help Telethon, by donating € 1 per bin for research on rare diseases.
At this point I show you the photo of my beloved Distillation Alembic, whose tallest column, of the 7 that make it up, measures about 30 meters. It is 150 years old, but still manages to produce 800 liters of pure alcohol per hour.
Prontigen was born in this monument of Sicilian history!
Anna Maria Maugeri
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