VOV was invented in 1845 by Gian Battista Pezziol, a confectioner of Padua specialized in the production of nougat, which required just the egg whites. Pezziol decided to use the remaining egg yolks with marsala wine, alcohol and sugar, to make a kind of zabajone liqueur and energy drink tonic much in vogue at that time. The Venetian dialect word “vovi” (= eggs) was shortened in the famous palindrome monosyllable VOV still used to describe the product.