Alaska Self-Allocates

Ylli Ferati stands in the sunken well behind the bar inside Fiori D’Italia, a restaurant deep in Anchorage’s Spenard neighborhood. From a seat there—you want to sit at the bar—you can watch a master class in cocktail making. Muscle memory makes Ferati’s movements feel choreographed as he preps five Old Fashioneds at the same time. He says, “I love to do classic cocktails. That’s kind of my favorite thing…I love creating my own but, you know, Old Fashioneds, Manhattans, Boulevardiers, Martinis… that’s the base of the cocktail world.”

Ferati is the son of the owners and founders of Fiori D’Italia, Uber and Urime. His father, Uber, was born in the former Yugoslavia, and left home after the war. “My dad was like, ‘You know, I need to get out of here for a bigger, better life.’” Uber’s future father-in-law was already in Alaska and lured him west to meet Urime. A marriage was arranged, and the two have just celebrated their 38th anniversary.

Ferati says, “I grew up in the restaurant world.” His grandfather was an original owner of Today’s Pizza in Anchorage. His father and grandfather ran The Captain’s Galley in the spot where Kinley’s is now. The original Fiori D’Italia opened in 1995 and moved to its current location, the home of the former Garden of Eatin’ in Spenard, in 1997. Ferati says the restaurant is tucked away because the neighborhood grew up around the Quonset hut Garden of Eatin’. The current Fiori D’Italia still has the historic Quonset hut attached, which has been used for special events.

“It’s more of a bottle shop. It sounds funny to say, but we don’t promote alcohol and drinking. It’s more the experience, and the story. We promote drinking less, drinking better.”

Ferati got his start behind the bar in 2010. He grew up in the kitchen with his parents and says that their love of food and cooking translated to a way with cocktails. But his skill and innovation with cocktails hide Ferati’s true passion: whisky. That passion is apparent the moment anyone ventures from the dining room of the restaurant into the bar which is backed by lit shelves holding hundreds of bottles of classic and unusual whiskies, a collection that was rebuilt after the 2018 earthquake. Whisky Advocate named Fiori D’Italia one of the Top 101 whisky bars in America in 2023, and they show up on other similar whisky bar lists from Thrillist to The Bourbon Review.

But Ferati says he didn’t always love whisky. “Funny thing,” he says, “I started backwards. Cognac was my first love.” When Ferati began behind the bar, there wasn’t a cocktail program, the restaurant had a big selection of all spirits, and it served wine and beer as well. There were a few signature cocktails invented by his mom, Urime. Whisky grew on him first, he says, because of the camaraderie he observed around it at the bar. He was watching whisky lovers talk about their favorite Scotches and share stories behind the bottles.

Once he started, Ferati took a quick and deep dive into the nuances of whisky and bourbon, single malts and blends. Traveling to whisky conventions in the U.S., he grew close with makers and distributors. His facility with developing cocktails developed into a knack for creating his own barrel blends and purchasing hand-picked select barrels for Fiori D’Italia.

When the restaurant shut down during the start of the pandemic, there was no quick pivot to takeout for Fiori D’Italia. “We’re one of the few restaurants that stayed closed,” Ferati says. During that time, his second hand-picked barrel arrived. “Barrels are not super cheap. You know, you’re looking at eight grand to $64,000 [for] some of them.” Ferati says. With no way to sell drinks, he got creative. Since, originally, the whisky wasn’t meant for home bars, he quickly created a Beastie Boys-inspired label with artist Joel Loosi featuring a family nod to the Albanian eagle. After the state opened a pandemic loophole allowing restaurants with liquor licenses to sell booze to go, Ferati posted bottles online from that Russel’s Reserve barrel and pre-sold the whole thing in ten days. The success of that bottle got him thinking, “I need to get my bottles out somehow.”

Ferati stewed on the idea of opening a bottle shop for a few years before inviting his now business partner Long Lam to consider joining him. “It took him a year or so to mull it over,” Ferati says. Lam had been a fan of the restaurant and its whisky bar for some time before he and Ferati decided to go into business together. He’s a CPA who also owns a nail salon, and his true passion is whisky. Lam says, “At my house, I probably have 400 open bottles of just Scotch alone… I love dissecting a whisky. I love writing notes. I love learning about it and having close, intimate friends come over and try whiskies together.” He says this differs from his business partner. “Ylli has one open bottle at his house.”

In August 2023, they opened Allocated, a short drive east of Fiori. Like many of the great things in Anchorage, it’s stashed in an unassuming strip mall. The exterior is free of any brand advertising or other classic giveaway signage. Just the Allocated logo—a stylized whisky tasting glass with the letter A filling the bowl. “We don’t call ourselves a liquor store,” Ferati says. “It’s more of a bottle shop. It sounds funny to say, but we don’t promote alcohol and drinking. It’s more the experience, and the story.” Lam says, “We promote drinking less, drinking better.” He confesses that even though he is obsessed with whisky and has some every day, that “some” is typically only about 1 ounce. Still, he can spend hours savoring it, enjoying the aroma, the mouthfeel, the aftertaste. Ferati and Lam consider theirs a destination spot where customers enjoy long conversations with the impassioned staff behind the counter who take the time and have the knowledge to guide an individual toward the correct-for-them next bottle. Lam says one main reason they wanted to open Allocated was to get Ferati’s tremendous barrel picks into home bars.

The pair blog in depth with great whisky nerd details about their acquisitions, barrel selects, and available special bottles, on the Allocated website, where they proudly wear the nicknames they’ve acquired: Whisky Godfather for Ferati, and Whisky Don for Lam.

Ferati knows that Fiori D’Italia feels like home to its regulars, and he and Lam wanted Allocated to have the same welcoming atmosphere. They know many customers by name, hugs are frequent, and they naturally learn folks’ likes and dislikes. Based on how they love to choose and select their own spirits, they decided they wanted to “change the paradigm for shopping for spirits.”

Walking into the store is like entering into a whisky lovers’ man cave. The color scheme is black. The whisky collection is divided in half with choices for “the malt men” (meaning Scotch drinkers) on the right and bottles for “the corn boys” (bourbon lovers) on the left. The center of the store features Allocated’s own barrel picks, as well as a curated selection of bitters and liqueurs. The store has many custom bourbon blends, and Ferati spends the most time with J. Mattingly; he’s done seven blends with them. Customers can also find other select spirits, and a small, curated selection of beer and wine.

The name Allocated was a bit of a clap back at an aspect of the whisky industry, Lam says. Typically, liquor stores and bottle shops are “allocated” for finer whiskies only when they agree to carry lower value bottles, too. Ferati and Lam knew they did not want to do that, and they knew they could make the business work without buying into that system.

Allocated had an almost immediate following of whisky-obsessed collectors cultivated by Ferati’s artistry, and the relationships he’s built at Fiori D’Italia. Word spread beyond the state that the shop was the place to find a high-quality selection. Lam says that “guys come here with Pelican cases” to fill with whisky from the store, especially from Seattle, with its much higher bottle tax and easy air access to Anchorage.

Make the Whisky Godfather’s Old Fashioned

Ylli Ferati sells around 100 Old Fashioneds a night. “It’s the easiest drink to make,” he says, “but the easiest drink to mess up.” To make Ferati’s no-fail Old Fashioned, start with a mixing glass: use one bourbon-soaked cherry (find Michele Genest’s recipe for bourbon cherries in the Winter 2023 issue or on ediblealaska.com), one sugar cube (Ferati insists on a cube and not a simple syrup), and three dashes of bitters. Muddle these three ingredients. Add whisky, stir, and strain over an oversized cocktail ice cube. Garnish with a bit of orange rind. Ferati twists the rind and lights it for less than a second with a flame to push the aromatics over the top.

While connoisseurs may spend many hundreds of dollars on a bottle, Lam and Ferati say selling expensive bottles isn’t a big goal of theirs. They have an in-house joke—“are you trying to down-sell me, man?”—because of how they often try and get less spendy or undervalued, and under-appreciated bottles in the hands of customers.

The synergy between Fiori D’Italia and Allocated goes beyond blood and a shared customer base. The restaurant has become the venue for one of the main parts of this new business. Ferati says, “Tastings have always been the funnest part of my job because it brings people together.” He likes to hold big events with dozens instead of handfuls of attendees. Their tastings sell out. Ferati loves to see learning and enjoying go hand in hand at these events. He loves bringing what he’s gleaned at whisky shows and conventions back to Alaska and watching sparks of passion for whisky ignite in his neighbors and community. Speaking of the strong connection between the venerable family-owned restaurant and the new bottle shop, Ferati says that his Allocated partner, Lam, is “part of the family now.”

Though they don’t talk about it much, the pair says that it’s important to have a strong philanthropy side to the business. Ferati acknowledges the harm that alcohol has caused in Alaska and elsewhere. He says every tasting benefits a designated charity, typically raising around $1,000. “We try to help,” he says. “We do as much as we can,” but he notes that it’s a personal goal and not something he feels the business needs to publicize.

Ferati has palpable satisfaction when considering the success of both Fiori D’Italia and the emerging Allocated. “For me, looking back at… everything that’s happened, it’s cool to see my mom and dad start their own business from basically scratch, nothing, just to see, you know, this.” He goes on, “It’s really cool to see… me and Long team up together, two first gens, and create something for everybody.” He reflects on the mix of cultures involved in Allocated, a bottle shop created by the children of Albanian and Taiwanese immigrants. “The mixing pot is just freaking phenomenal.”