The story of Alpestre begins in 1857 in France, in the Hermitage, on the Gier river, when the father Marista Frate Emanuele, expert connoisseur of aromatic herbs and their beneficial and therapeutic properties, mixing 34 of them created a special elixir whose recipe is still secret today.

Initially the distillate was called "Arquebuse dell’Hermitage". The success of the elixir was immediate, and given the countless beneficial principles, the French government requested that the precious product be sent to the soldiers engaged in the colonies in order to use it as a first remedy for the wounds caused by the arquebuses (hence the name "Arquebuse" ). The Hermitage was instead the place of manufacture.

Following the enactment of the anticlerical laws of the early 1900s in France, the religious moved near Turin, to Carmagnola, taking with them the secrets handed down from generation to generation on the preparation of the special elixir. This is where today's Alpestre San Giuseppe distillery was born.

In 1929 the old name was abandoned and the elixir was renamed by the Alpestre friars, following the numerous attempts to copy and counterfeit the distillate and the prohibition during the years of Fascism to use foreign names.