NEGRONI
1 PART CAMPARI
1 PART BEEFEATER GIN
1 PART MARTINI ROSSO
ORANGE PEEL, TO GARNISH
Pour the Campari, gin and Martini over ice in a rocks glass or tumbler and garnish with orange peel.
NEEDING NO INTRODUCTION, the Negroni is not only one of the most delicious aperitifs, it’s also one of the easiest to knock up, which perhaps goes some way to explaining its popularity. It is said to have been invented in Florence in 1919 when Count Camillo Negroni, home from a stint as a cowboy in America’s Wild West where he’d developed a taste for hard liquor, ordered his bartender to make his favourite drink, the Americano (Campari, vermouth and a splash of soda water) with gin in place of the soda. Clever Count Negroni: his eponymous cocktail became one of the world’s greatest, and still appears in the top 10 favourite aperitif lists of the drinkers I like and respect most of all.
The classic I was taught uses equal measures of Campari, Beefeater gin and Martini Rosso. Most bars use 25ml/1oz of each; that’s a lot of booze packed into not many sips. Two Negronis as an aperitif are more than enough for me; after three the alcohol has killed off my appetite as well as my taste buds and I become a danger in the kitchen.
Using different gins and vermouths will obviously change the drink. Experiment with what you have to hand, but be cautious of going too off piste if you want the proper Negroni vibe. Steer away from floral gins as they battle a bit with the intrinsic bitterness of the drink; I find Antica Formula too sweet and heavy in the place of the Martini Rosso but it has its aficionados; I prefer Punt e Mes, swarthy with an extra kick of bitterness that makes the drink really intriguing. And while it’s a drink that is hard to improve on, a dash of orange bitters can raise it to the ranks of the sublime.
