Here’s how to make the Negroni. It’s a simple drink made with Gin, Campari, Sweet Vermouth and an Orange peel for garnish. It’s occasionally garnished with an orange wheel and topped with soda, but I usually prefer it over a large ice cube. This drink is easy to make and easy to drink. The hard part is limiting yourself to just one. The often told story behind the drink is that in 1919 Count Camillo Negroni, an Italian aristocrat, was responsible for it when he asked to stiffen his usual aperitif with gin. There was a lot of mystery around this drink and a lot of misinformation that made it hard to accept the simple story of such a famous and well-regarded drink.
But Italian bartender and cocktail historian, Luca Picchi, in his book, Negroni Cocktail, an Italian Legend, and David Wondrich in his article, How the Negroni Conquered America, combine to make compelling arguments that the gist of the story is basically correct.
Picchi detailed Camillo (or sometimes Cammillo) Negroni’s life, the bartender who first mixed the drink, Fosco Scarselli, and Florence, the city where it all happened.
Wondrich dispelled certain myths and was able to put to rest some false leads that seemed to contradict or at least call into question the Camillo story. One of those leads was a rash of Negroni-like drinks that sprung up in the 1920’s. Most of these drinks turned up in France because Campari was working hard to break into the French market at the time. But, these drinks never really caught on, despite those recipes making it to print before the Negroni. And a big part of that came down to how the Negroni spread and was embraced by Italians.
According to Picchi’s book, Camillo Negroni spent a good chunk of his early adulthood in North America. He also spent 6 years in Manhattan, starting in 1898, which was during the Golden Age of Cocktails. He was exposed to the American way of drinking and the biggest, newest drinks at the time were vermouth cocktails like the Manhattan (whiskey and sweet vermouth), the Martinez (gin and sweet vermouth) and the Martini (gin and dry vermouth).
Camillo moved back to Italy in 1904 and back to his hometown of Florence in 1912. Fosco Scarselli in 1917, he started working as a bartender at Caffè Casoni in Florence. Camillo regularly would pop in to Caffè Casoni for a quick aperitif before going out for the night. Camillo would order drinks in the American style. This often meant drinking vermouth, amaro and soda water in a cordial glass.
One night in either 1919 (or possibly 1920), Fosco recalled Camillo asked to add gin to it. Camillo loved it and it became his usual drink. According to Picchi, he would drink 40 of these a day. So, it’s not surprising that the combination of gin, sweet vermouth, Campari and soda water, became so closely associated with him.
He spread the drink throughout dozens of cafes, bars and hotel bars, exposing lots of his peers, his often well-travelled peers, who helped spread the drink throughout Italy. However, by the late-1920’s, when the rabid nationalism of the Italian fascists began to tighten their grip over culture, they began crack down on foreign things such as cocktails. The very word “cocktail” was virtually outlawed. This helped account for the drink not spreading in print in Italian media at the time.
But the bartenders and elite social circles kept the drink alive and after the war, the American style of drinking was allowed to flourish. By the late 40’s/early 50’s the drink started popping up in print around Italy. In the early 60’s, it started popping up in pop-culture, court documents and it was the IBA’s selection to represent Italy in their first cocktail book. All of this helped the drink get into the first round of cocktail revivals in the early 21st century. It climbed the mountain and take its place along side a few elite cocktails that have become household names. And it only took 100 years (give or take a decade). Saluti!
Recipe:
1 oz (30 ml) Gin
1 oz (30 ml) Campari
1 oz (30 ml) Sweet Vermouth
garnish Orange Twist
Stir with ice. Strain over large ice in an old fashioned glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
Music:
Whole Inside (Instrumental Version) by Martin Landh
via Epidemic Sound
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Featured in this Episode:
Astral Pacific Gin
Campari
Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
Negroni Cocktail, an Italian Legend by Luca Picchi
How the Negroni Conquered America by David Wondrich
Bar Tools:
Double Old Fashioned Glass
Leopold Jigger
Muddler Barspoon
Julep Strainer
Mixing Glass
#Negroni #History #EasyCocktails
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