Bordiga Vermouth di Torino Excelsior is produced using the distillery's original 1888 recipe from Cuneo, Piedmont — one of the founding Vermouth di Torino producers. The base wine is a blend of Piedmont Nebbiolo and selected local white wines, which are combined with herbal infusions, spices, and roots before being fortified with grape spirit and blended to 18% ABV. The Vermouth di Torino designation (a protected Italian GI) requires the product to be produced using Piedmont wine and meet strict Italian production standards. Bordiga's Excelsior is the house's flagship style, originally produced for Turin's historic Caffè Mulassano.

Bordiga Distillery was founded in 1888 by Pietro Bordiga, a passionate herbalist and expert in alpine botanicals and oriental spices, in Cuneo at the foot of the Alps in Piedmont, Italy. The location was chosen deliberately for its access to wild officinal herbs growing in the surrounding mountains and its proximity to the Langhe wine region — homeland of Barolo and Barbaresco. An original copper pot still dating from 1888 remains at the heart of production. Bordiga's Vermouth recipe was so highly regarded that the legendary Caffè Mulassano in Turin — one of Italy's oldest cafés — had its Vermouth produced exclusively to the Bordiga recipe.