The noble Negroni
If I could only drink one cocktail for the rest of my life, it’d be this
No cocktail pays a better dividend on your investment than the Negroni. Its requirements are modest—anyone can make it, it doesn’t require any kit and it needn’t be expensive—and yet it’s one of the great drinks. This is true whether it’s in fashion or not.
(Read my very short Campari/Negroni-themed story, The sweetness of life and the bitter herbs of death, here.)
Character
The Negroni is an ‘aromatic’ cocktail, “one where the base spirit tends to be combined with some kind of bitters or aromatised wine; rarely are fruit juices involved and such cocktails tend to be stirred.”1 The best known aromatic is the Martini.
Like the Martini, the Negroni is rich in botanicals, while there’s a bittersweetness, depth and punch that make it both satisfying and refreshing. Its balance is not one of active and passive components, but big flavours smashing into each other and finding a strange and beautiful equilibrium.2
Although it repays investment in ingredients and care, the Negroni doesn’t repay fiddliness or ostentation. The complexity and sophistication should all be beneath the surface, in the ingredients and their interplay; it should look simple.
Ingredients
Like many of the best cocktails,3 the Negroni has only three ingredients: gin, Campari (or another amaro) and sweet (red) vermouth. Plus an orange slice or twist and usually ice.
A basic one, made with the brands found in supermarkets and no messing about, is perfectly serviceable.4 More money and effort, however, can make a big difference, while the formula is pretty robust and can withstand some variation.
Bear in mind that gin is, weirdly, something of a quiet partner in the Negroni, and most of the time it’s better to spend your money on the other variables.
NB Unless stated otherwise below, gin and amari come in 70 cl bottles and vermouth in 75 cl bottles. Percentages are alcohol by volume (ABV). Prices (UK) are current summer 2024.
Gin
Robust, orthodox London dry gin is traditional and I think works best. The classical, juniper-led botanicals seem to fit in well with most combinations, and can stand up to the powerful flavours of the other ingredients.
Of the standard gins, I usually go for Tanqueray London Dry Gin (41.3%, ~£20, often on offer, better value in litre bottles) or Beefeater London Dry Gin (40%, controversially reduced in strength, ~£20, often on offer), both popular workhorses with professionals5, and neither is shy. The more diffident notes of floral gins like Hendrick’s can be brushed aside by the Campari and vermouth.
Stronger gins often go well. This is because gin is distilled to be more alcoholic than its final form and then diluted with water, and the more you water it down, the weaker the flavour. You want plenty of flavour.
I often use the Wine Society’s High Strength Gin (50%; £22) and Portobello Road Navy Strength Gin (57.1%; >£20 for 50 cl). My knowledgeable friend and sometime collaborator, Andy Hamilton, plumps for Blackwoods Vintage Dry Gin (60%, 2021 vintage ~£25), while US drinks writer Michael Dietsch suggests Perry’s Tot Navy Strength (57%, ~£40).
The only funky gin I use regularly is the Australian Four Pillars Spiced Negroni Gin (41.8%, >£40). This produces a noticeably different drink, a richer, spicier6 Negroni that feels sort of luxurious; it doesn’t make my favourite Negroni, but it makes one of my favourite Negronis. I especially like it in the winter, above all around Christmas, or at night, after dinner.
Others I often use include: Quaglia Gin Bèrto (London Dry) (Italian, suitably; 43%, ~£25, often cheaper), Sipsmith London Dry Gin (41.6%, £30 direct, frequently on offer somewhere) and Portobello Road No. 171 Gin (London Dry) (42%, £29.50 direct, frequently on offer somewhere).
You can use more expensive or exotic gins, but to me there’s no benefit or even a reduction in quality.
Sweet (rosso, red) vermouth
This is where you can usually make the biggest difference.
If you use the standard Martini Rosso (usually ~£10), well, many do. You get a solid Negroni. But—
There are many other options.
I keep trying different sweet red vermouths in Negronis, and I’ve never found one to touch Cocchi Storico Vermouth Di Torino (commonly just Cocchi (‘cocky’) Torino, ~£25, sometimes on offer here and there), which is the classic choice. It has a lovely balance for bitterness/sweetness, weight and botanicals, and makes the drink for me.
Some knowledgeable people go for Carpano Antica Formula (>£30 for 1 litre), a fine vermouth with a grand pedigree, but for me it’s too strong, too sweet, too rich and too vanilla for the Negroni. If using this, I’d consider reducing the proportion of vermouth.
Carpano also makes Carpano Classico (~£18 for 1 litre), which is similar but drier, and is a better bet (possibly Carpano thinks so too), as well as another popular choice, the more bitter Punt e Mes (~£16). I’ve drunk many bar Negronis made with the latter, and enjoyed them, but I’ve only run through a single bottle at home; it’s not one of ‘mine’.
Dolin Rouge (~£15), a French sweet vermouth, also has a knowledgeable following, and I’m a great admirer of the Dolin distillery in general—but not so much for a Negroni vermouth. For me, the problem is the opposite of that for Carpano; it’s too delicate and makes for a slightly flat drink. (Dolin Dry is my favourite aperitif and Martini vermouth; it’s incredibly clean and delicious.)
If you want to stick to a household name, Martini Riserva Speciale Rubino (~£18) is a step up from Martini Rosso and I’ve enjoyed it in Negronis, having picked up a bottle in duty free some years ago.
No one seems to talk about Cinzano Rosso (usually ~£10) in a Negroni and I’ve never knowingly tried it, but I should because it’s snobbery not to and you can be surprised, especially in mixed drinks. But somehow I never buy a bottle. There’s also a premium version to give a go, 1757 Vermouth di Torino G.I. Rosso.
My top non-Cocchi variant at home is Casa Mariol Vermut Negre (~£20 for 1 litre, often cheaper but often out of stock online), a Spanish/Catalan vermouth (vermut), and while I’d like to pretend that I discovered it in a small taverna in a hidden Catalan valley or as the culmination of years of research, around ten years ago I asked my then local merchant, Corks in Bristol, for a good Negroni vermouth other than Cocchi and they suggested this. It’s darker than Cocchi, and less complex and subtle, but possibly snappier. It’s no longer so much cheaper. I like to alternate between this, Cocchi and untried vermouths, but with Cocchi getting preference.
Others not tried but on the list: Belsazar Vermouth Red, Vermouth del Professore Rosso.
Note: vermouth is a fortified wine, not a spirit, so it doesn’t keep indefinitely and should be refrigerated after opening and not left more than a couple of months at the longest; it gets flat and thin and the wine in it becomes vinegar. Most vermouths are around 15–20% by volume.
Tip: try adding a few drops of orange or possibly grapefruit bitters if using basic or elderly vermouth. Bitters that come in small bottles with drip pourers, e.g. Angostura, Bitter Truth, Regan’s or Fee’s—see here for flavour profiling of some orange bitters. Not to be confused with the bitters (usually amari) that traditionally make up a third of the Negroni.7
Bitters (amari)
Classically, the bitter element in the Negroni is Campari. Campari is an amaro (Italian for ‘bitter’; plural: amari).
How to describe Campari meaningfully?
Years ago during after-work drinks a colleague asked to try my alluringly carmine Campari (served with a squirt of soda) and then, having choked for a moment on the bitterness, asked with horror what was in it. It’s a long and uncertain answer, taking in history, myth, botany and distilling, and also I didn’t know, so I just said, “The sweetness of life and the bitter herbs of death,” and left it at that. It seems as good an answer as any. I could have added that it also shows citrus and spice notes, but it’s too late now.
The ingredients are said to be legion but they’re theatrically secret. Difford’s Guide says that Gaspare Campari’s 1860 recipe—supposedly comprising 68 fruits, herbs and spices—is still used, with bitter orange peel the only confirmed ingredient, and quinine, rhubarb, ginseng, chinotto (myrtle-leave orange tree) and Cascarilla bark suspected. Other sources are less confident (“The only known ingredients in Campari are water and alcohol.”).8
One thing we know for certain is that the original carmine colouring came from dried cochineal beetles, but that was replaced around 20 years ago, stealing a little more of the magic from life.
Although Campari (~£20, often available for ~£15) is inimitable and some drinkers scorn any alternative, there are other amari that make a fine Negroni, or Negroni-like drink, if you prefer.
Having tried a good few, though nothing like all, of the most plausible competitors, I’d plump for three home favourites and a bar favourite.
The first is an obvious and well-known variant, Cynar (pronounced chee-nar; chee as in cheese; ~£18), another Gruppo Campari aperitivo. Although it’s named for the artichoke used in it (Cynara scolymus), it doesn’t taste like that; there are a dozen other flavourings. Cynar is bracing and, well, brown; it produces a delicious pseudo-Negroni but one that looks muddy—more Venetian canal water than dolce vita. It’s sometimes called the Cin-cyn (‘chin chin’).
The second is the like-for-like candidate: Quaglia Bitter Bèrto (~£25 for 1 litre) is a fairly close match, but makes for a smoother Negroni with subtle differences. I love it and use it almost as often as Campari. (It’s also more-or-less carmine.)
The third is the apothecary’s choice: Amaro Santoni (~£25 for 50 cl). It’s pale with a relatively delicate hue, and has a strong medicinal savour with notes of e.g. cloves. I probably only fancy a Santoni Negroni one time in thirty but enjoy the variation.
The fourth is the British/bar option: Asterley Bros Dispense Amaro (~£30 for 50 cl). Simon Thomas at the Blind Bus Driver often uses this in combination with Cocchi Torino vermouth for a complex, pleasingly chewy Negroni. Dispense is an Anglo-Sicilian invention and a good example of the renaissance in artisanal drink making. (It’s also costly, as they tend to be, which isn’t to say they’re poor value.)
I enjoy these variations and like to try different amari but I always come back to Campari. In fact, I’m having a crisis of doubt even as I write this, and if an elderly Italian wagged a finger at me and said, No, always and only Campari! in a sorrowful voice I’d fall to my knees and beg forgiveness. Can the Negroni and Campari truly be separated? I don’t know.
The bitters used in Negronis are typically ~25%, though Cynar and Amaro Santoni are only ~16%.
Others not tried but on the list: Contratto Bitter; Dr Hostetter’s Bitter; Aperitivo Select; Luxardo Bitter; Martini Riserva Speciale Bitter; St George Bruto Americano, Mondino Amaro.
⁂
Our tastes change as we age and/or our circumstances alter, so I might change my mind about some of the above; opinions are always provisional. The memory of one outstanding drink, influenced by where we were, what we were doing and who we were with, can fix one version in our minds as The One, or One of the Ones, etc.
Suppliers
There’s no beating a good specialist physical shop with knowledgeable staff and the opportunity to browse, but if you live in the sticks and have unusual requirements, like me, online backup is handy. I often use Master of Malt and The Whisky Exchange, two UK-based online retailers. Both offer good service and often good prices. Some things go out of stock regularly and offers are also to be had from time to time, so it’s worth stocking up when the going is good. The wicked behemoth Amazon stocks some things, sometimes cheaply, while the supermarkets can also offer canny prices on Campari and gins when they want to.
Ratio
The classic ratio is one part gin, one part bitters, one part vermouth. Sometimes people double up on the gin,9 but that’s the only variation I’d consider, and even then it’s not really for me. When you start getting into fiddly fractions—and some do—you’re vandalising the elegant simplicity of the Negroni.
Preparing the Negroni
The are four main ways to make a Negroni:
Pour the ingredients over ice into the glass you’ll be serving/drinking the Negroni in and stir for 20–30 seconds.10 The ice should be good quality, decent sized cubes, not bought-in ice, and not crushed ice, while mega-cubes mean longer stirring and slower dilution to optimal strength (see below). Add garnish.
Pour the ingredients over ice into a mixing glass or other vessel, stir for 20–30 seconds, and then strain into the drinking glass over ice—see above, though a mega-cube is now fine as no further stirring is required, and indeed might be advantageous as it melts more slowly. (I find them a bit cumbersome and faddish.) Add garnish.
Pour the ingredients over ice into a mixing glass or other vessel, stir for 20–30 seconds, and then strain into the drinking glass without ice (‘straight up’). Add garnish.
Mix a large quantity in e.g. a jug or jugs in advance, keeping covered in the refrigerator if storing overnight, and then pour it over ice into the glass you’ll be serving/drinking the Negroni in and stir for 20–30 seconds. Add garnish. Obviously this is for bulk service, e.g. at a party or occasion; it’s how Negronis were served at our wedding reception. (Obviously you could adopt a bulk version of (3) for this but service and getting the chilling and dilution right would be tricky.)
What are we really doing when we prepare the drinks?
Obviously we’re blending the ingredients and putting them in a vessel we can drink from. We’re also changing their temperature. Yawn, yawn, yes—but we’re also, less obviously, adding an essential ingredient. I don’t mean the garnish, I mean water.11
Water is an ingredient and needs to be treated as such:
Achieving a harmonious balance between a drink’s various constituents is key to it tasting just right. If you put in the wrong measure of any one ingredient, the whole drink tastes wrong and water is no exception … So here is the crux of the matter: dilution is an ingredient that you are measuring into a drink by shaking or stirring it. (my bold)12
The two things we really need to think about are temperature and water. These aren’t static: there’s the coolness and level of dilution at service and then over time once served.
Methods (1), (2) and (4) above will retain their chill after service because they’re drunk over ice, but they will become more dilute, i.e. watery. Method (3) will maintain the same water content because it’s not served with ice, but for the same reason it won’t retain its chill as well.
Everything in life’s a trade-off. None of this is worth crying over and you’re not going to hell for using or preferring one method over another. I’d just say this—
I use methods (1), (2) or (4) (all served on ice) at home according to how many Negronis I’m making, what I’m doing and what I fancy. If I’m making a few Negronis I prefer (2) because mixing and stirring one batch and then pouring is more economical of effort than doing them separately; if I’m making a lot and know in advance, obviously (4) is the one. Method (2) is more ceremonial than method (1), so if I want to make the drink preparation more of a ritual or more formal, I’ll also do it that way, even if it’s just one for me. This can e.g. help close off the working day and open up the evening. It might also serve your Negroni closer to the ideal state; I think it does. But often I use method (1) because it’s easiest and I’m usually only making one or two.
For me, method (3) (no ice in the drinking glass) is best suited to evening bar Negronis. The drink needs to be served just so, because it won’t be adjusted by melting ice, all that’ll happen is loss of chill; an experienced bartender is the person most likely to do this. Plus I think it suits the ambience of a dimly lit bar at night—it doesn’t suit sitting outside in the hot sun or drinking while barbecuing (some of my favourite settings for Negroni drinking at home); it’ll soon be the temperature of fresh milk. I never opt for the iceless Negroni if given the choice, but if I’m served one in a bar I don’t mind at all; I’m glad of the variation and admire the elegance. But you have to do your bit and drink it before it loses its cool.
There is an element of character in choosing your method: do you prefer the narrative arc where the drink starts perhaps a bit on the strong side and then mellows; or do you prefer it where it starts perfect and then opens out a bit as it warms, releasing more flavour but becoming less refreshing and eventually definitively less enjoyable? I like the former best but that’s my choice.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, shakes a Negroni.13
In the glass: ice and slice
Generally, if you’re serving your Negroni over ice use a tumbler (old fashioned/rocks glass) and if you’re serving it strained without ice use a chilled cocktail/Martini glass (inverted cone) or coupe.14
In professional parlance, you want a decent washline (level of liquid in the glass) and iceline (how the ice sits in the glass) in your tumbler.
Some expert advice from Daniel Waddy and Kevin Armstrong in Roundbuilding:
Washline:
the liquid should comfortably fill the glass without risk of overflowing. This in itself looks appealing, and ignoring very large or small vessels, a good washline is somewhere between half and one centimetre from the rim.
Iceline:
there should be enough ice in the glass to break the surface of the liquid. Although ice floats, it will only wallow sloppily unless supported from below, so in order for ice to look good at the top, it also needs to be touching the bottom. Towers need foundations and a sturdy arrangement means you can place any garnish without it slipping down into the drink…. but a good rule of thumb is that if you can’t take a sip from the rim without getting a cube in the nose, there’s too much ice.
For me, I like a smallish old school tumbler (glasses mostly used to be smaller) with a few fairly large cubes and not too full. It’s better to have more smaller drinks than a few huge beakers; they’re less likely to become warm and watery and I just prefer the aesthetics—more Jazz Age than Starbucks mega-cup world.
The traditional garnish is a good size strip of orange peel15 twisted to express the oils into the drink or a slice of orange. The orange makes a surprising and good difference, especially the oils from the peel.
It’s best not to char the orange peel (it’s too much) or use it to oil the rim of the glass (also too much).
At a pinch you can use other citrus fruits, including grapefruit and above all Meyer lemons.16
If you don’t have an orange and feel the loss, you can add a couple of drops of orange bitters. The bitters aren’t the worst addition at any time.
I’m a simple, rustic sort of drinker at heart and usually minimise fiddling (effort) with the garnish, which often looks like debris from a small child’s unsuccessful art project when I go for a twist.
Some ways you can make a bad Negroni
Using poor quality ice
Over-stirring (too long)
Using old, poor or the wrong (i.e. not sweet red) vermouth
Substituting ingredients badly, e.g. because you can’t find the right thing
Making it and then leaving it to hang around
Adding too much (e.g. orange) bitters
Fiddling, fussing and over-garnishing
Doing it in the wrong spirit (see below)
Serving and drinking the Negroni
Classically, the Negroni is an aperitivo, to be drunk before a meal, often with kickshaws such as olives, salted nuts, crisps (potato chips), crostini, etc. This is the way I like it best, except that I also love it in the evening, after a meal, in a bar, or whatever, without food. And it’s one of my favourite things to drink when barbecuing or otherwise preparing food on a hot day or outside. It’s oddly adaptable for such an unbland drink.
Aperitivo (with food)
It’s no mystery that the drink is a favorite among chefs. They like things they can taste and taste and taste. (Robert Simonson, 3-Ingredient Cocktails)
Not only does food go well with the Negroni, but the Negroni goes well with food. What I mean by this is that each enhances the other—they make each other more enjoyable and the food also slows the alcoholic impact of the Negroni.
Some of the things I think suit the Negroni best are: saltiness; fattiness; citrus; fennel; Mediterranean herbs, especially rosemary; smokiness. For example, tapenade in various combinations; cured meats (fennel salami is a favourite); salty, crunchy cheeses like pecorino and parmesan; smoked scamorza; lemon-marinated artichokes; aubergine caviar; and even pizza. (A lot of this works on crostini or as a dip for bread, etc.; I also like a caprese salad or a ‘dirty’ caprese with tapenade.)
Fiona Beckett at Matching Food and Wine suggests canapés topped with smoked duck or crostini with duck pate,17 which sounds the ticket; slightly gamey fattiness would be set off the alcoholic bittersweetness nicely and fortify the stomach. There does also seem to be an affinity between smokiness and the Negroni.
For a British take, black pudding (e.g. on crostini, which are after all like fried bread) goes well.
In most Italian bars you’ll just get little dishes of salted crisps and nuts, and perhaps some olives, and that’s good. If it’s high end or you’re lucky, you’ll get more; and that’s even better. A Negroni can also accompany antipasti.
Night-time is the right time
The traditional accompaniment to a night Negroni is tobacco, and if I still smoked I’d be happy with that; there is that affinity with smokiness and, if we’re honest, between alcohol and smoking. If you’re at home, night air with a little smoke from a dying barbecue or a wood-filled fire pit or chiminea is the next best thing.
Some speakeasies and other night bars give you little dishes of pretzels or similar with every drink and that works nicely.
Professional advice
Simon Thomas. Know your limits:
The Negroni sometimes seems like the ‘macho curry’ of cocktails. That’s not to denigrate it, but rather it is based on my experience of it being ordered by drinkers trying to prove how Alan Sugar they are. They have literally no idea of the effect two Negronis will have on their night. It’s amusing to watch and an awful waste of decent spirit and bartending skill at the same time.
Anthony Bourdain, who wasn’t exactly a prude, was also cautious:
I would recommend a dosage of two of these, maximum. Cause after three, it’s, “Where'd my pants go? And who the hell are you?” Enjoy.18
Related from Daniel Waddy and Kevin Armstrong:
If you like Negronis but you’re aiming to remain compos mentis, an Americano fits the bill…
Having nodded along to the above, I will say that there are times when two Negronis just aren’t enough and nothing but a Negroni will do; and as the poet said, Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. But then I’m not a professional.
Some Negronis
Traditional Negroni
Most typically (see e.g. Kate Hawkings, footnote 4):
25 ml Beefeater gin
25 ml Campari
25 ml Martini Rosso
Served over ice with an orange twist or slice.
My Negronis
These are the two Negronis I make most often at home and the first is the one that we had at our wedding reception instead of fizz. On the grounds of revealed preference, these should be my favourites. Sometimes I’ll add a few drops of orange or grapefruit bitters to either version and I often make variants. (Do not overuse the bitters.)
Wedding/evergreen Negroni
25 ml Wine Society’s High Strength Gin (or Tanqueray, etc; I prefer Tanqueray to Beefeater in a Negroni)
25 ml Campari
25 ml Cocchi Torino
At home: served over ice with a Meyer lemon garnish after stirring.
At the wedding: served from premixed jugs and stirred in the glass with ice and desiccated orange slices (as a preservative and to concentrate flavour).
I typically serve this style of Negroni with food of some sort. At the wedding kickshaws were circulated to encourage drinkers to take on ballast, which mostly worked—just one early casualty.
Winter/Christmas/after-dinner Negroni
25 ml Four Pillars Spiced Negroni Gin
25 ml Quaglia Bitter Bèrto
25 ml Cocchi Torino
Served over ice with an orange peel garnish. I’m more likely to stir this first and then pour it over ice (method (2) above) and use an orange slice rather than a twist. I’m less likely to serve this with food because it’s more often my ‘night’ Negroni and because its rich spiciness is happy alone.
Family and friends
A few related drinks that I rate.
Negroni sbagliato
The ‘bungled Negroni’; it’s said that a barman invented it accidentally by reaching for the wrong bottle. One part Campari, one part sweet vermouth and one or two parts sparkling wine (I tend to go for a dry one). It doesn’t quite have the depth and grandeur of the original, but it’s good and refreshing and I like it a lot—it also tastes so essentially similar that you can see how passive the gin is in a conventional Negroni. Excellent on e.g. Christmas morning and generally as a deeper, more serious alternative to buck’s fizz, but good on all sorts of occasions.
For a recipe see e.g. here.
Boulevardier
This basically swaps out whisk(e)y for gin; usually bourbon. It’s good, though to my taste not as good.
For a recipe see e.g. here.
For a sort of rolling discussion of a recipe (and excellent read) see here.
Americano
The milder progenitor of the Negroni (see below). The gin is swapped for soda. Nice and refreshing, especially at lunch when you have something to do in the afternoon.
For a recipe see e.g. here.
There are many other relations; some good, some lasting, some passing, some novel, some pointlessly elaborate, some simple and almost not different at all.
Short history of the Negroni
This is how they usually tell it. In the 19th century the Milano–Torino (Milan/Turin) was a popular mixed drink in Italy; it was made up of Campari (from Milan) and sweet vermouth (from Turin). A lighter version was topped up with sparkling water or soda. After the First World War this became popular with the many visiting Americans and was renamed the Americano. In his Hemingway cocktail companion, Philip Greene speculates that Americans had developed a liking for Campari during Prohibition; it was classified as a medicinal product by the US government and was available by doctor’s prescription. A variant on this is that mixed spirit cocktails were already called Americanos because that was how Americans drank, unlike Italians who would take each drink straight.
An Italian version of the origin myth is that the Americano was named in honour of an Italian boxer called Primo Carnera, who moved to the USA and won the World Heavyweight title in 1933 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
In any case, Count Cammillo Luigi Manfredo Maria Negroni is supposed to have found the Americano a little tame and in 1919 asked a bartender in Florence to swap the soda for gin. Other drinkers started to ask for the Count Negroni … and so it went on.
This may or may not be true. The same goes for the stories of Count Negroni having been at times a cowboy and riverboat gambler in the USA, though the suggestion of an American link makes sense in drinking terms (see Americanos above). The more you look into the origin story for the Negroni, the less certain you are of the truth, and the angrier and more opinionated those involved seem; and much as I love the Negroni, I care about who is right about as much as my parents did when my sister and I squabbled in the back of the car as toddlers; which is to say, not a lot.
At any rate, we seem to have had the Negroni for around a century, and while it has always had a following, it’s fair to say that its popularity has waxed and waned, at least in the English-speaking world. As Henry Jeffreys wrote in his 2020 Cocktail Dictionary, the Negroni was until recently, “a cult cocktail, drunk only by bartenders and Italians”, before becoming mainstream.19
A fair observation, though the Negroni did have some famous 20th century admirers outside Italy, including Ernest Hemingway (of course), Kingsley Amis, Orson Welles, Rudolph Nureyev, Audrey Hepburn and Tennessee Williams.20 The first drink James Bond orders in Casino Royale is an Americano and in For Your Eyes Only he orders a Negroni in the Excelsior Bar in Rome, requesting (as often) the now out-of-favour Gordon’s London Dry Gin (“good old, but disastrously uncool, Gordon’s”).
But anyhow, mainstream, yes, increasingly from the 2010s, though very much on the hipster side of mainstream for most of that time. It was The Thing more than a decade ago and already becoming tiresome for people more exposed to whatever The Thing is at any given time than me.
Next month we’ll have the eleventh annual Negroni Week (16–22 September 2024), now expertly promoted by various marketing outfits, and what could be more mainstream—and inadvertently high fashion-killing—than that?
There is also what Simon Thomas referred to above as the ‘macho curry’ following, which probably centres as much on the Negroni’s reputation as a ‘grown up’ (i.e. bitter and not immediately approachable) drink as its heavy load of alcohol. This sort of posturing isn’t exactly cool or endearing, either, especially for drinks professionals; and nor is showiness or preciousness, which might not be unknown among Negronistas.
So the Negroni is no longer particularly novel or fashionable, no one is going to admire you for ordering one and if you want to show off you should look elsewhere, but why bother doing that when you can get so much enjoyment from drinking it? And it’ll still be there when its passing admirers have moved on.
True spirit of the Negroni
Recently I drank a very basic Negroni mixed by an enthusiastic bartender at a small country pub–hotel who had to look it up online before he made it; in objective terms it wasn’t great. I was with a good old friend whom I hadn’t seen for a long time and who lives in a world where every conceivable refinement of the Negroni is available, while I’ve just written the thousands of words above—but we thanked the bartender sincerely for his trouble and told him the drinks were good and meant it.
(Read my very short Campari/Negroni-themed story, The sweetness of life and the bitter herbs of death, here.)
Paul Fishman (Skelsmergh, August 2024)
Daniel Waddy and Kevin Armstrong, Roundbuilding. I was fortunate to do some editorial work on this book. Although it’s aimed at practising bartenders, it’s full of interesting and useful insights for amateurs, both in terms of home drinking/drink preparation and service, and how to best order in a bar—it’s good to understand the mechanics of what happens on the other side, just as having been a waiter and/or worked in a kitchen is illuminating for restaurant customers. You can also watch Daniel talk about Roundbuilding suitably enough on the Campari Academy YouTube channel here. Note: a new updated and expanded edition is in preparation has been published.
Or, if you’re of a philosophical cast of mind, you could say it’s the ultimate dialectical cocktail (let’s say Hegelian, though its red colour is suspect), where “the contradiction between a proposition (thesis) and its antithesis is resolved at a higher level of truth (synthesis)” (Collins)—you might lose all your friends or get beaten up, but you could say it.
See e.g. Robert Simonson, 3-Ingredient Cocktails: An Opinionated Guide to the Most Enduring Drinks in the Cocktail Canon. Having argued over half a dozen paragraphs for the general superiority of the three-ingredient cocktail in his introduction, he concludes:
Finally, the three-ingredient cocktail has history on its side. Every time the cocktail world has stirred up dust within the great culture, it’s because some three-legged liquid creature has ventured, all big-footed, onto the world’s Main Street: the Whiskey Cocktail, Mint Julep, Manhattan, Martini, Tom Collins, Whiskey Sour, Daiquiri, Margarita, Moscow Mule, Negroni, and Harvey Wallbanger—all three-ingredient game-changers. Triumphal triptych cocktails don’t provoke arguments about whether they’re good or not; they start arguments about the best way to make them well. It’s taken as an article of faith that they’re good. (my italics)
In Aperitif, Kate Hawkings writes that:
The classic I was taught uses equal measures of Campari, Beefeater gin and Martini Rosso…. 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.
She’s been in the food and drink business for many years and knows a thing or two. It’s interesting how often those in the trade are less snobbish.
This is not faint praise.
“We use botanicals like Tasmanian pepperberry leaf, cinnamon, West African spice grains of paradise and Indonesian cubeb to up the ante. Plus there’s some fresh ginger in the botanical basket to help lift the spice, and we opened up the plates to add weight and intensity to the gin.”
My barber was going to use a small bottle of bitters to make up a third of a Negroni last Christmas before I persuaded her to get some Campari instead. It would have been memorably undrinkable.
“The only known ingredients in Campari are water and alcohol. According to the company, these are blended then infused with ‘bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruit.’ Nothing else is revealed, including how many ingredients are used or what they may be. Many speculations abound, including that the bitterness comes from the chinotto citrus fruit.” (Spruce Eats)
e.g. Michael Jackson (this one), whose laconic, authoritative pocket bar book was my first booze guide, suggests two parts gin, one part vermouth and one part Campari. I think Anthony Bourdain did something similar.
Using a stirring spoon, obviously, though e.g. a chopstick is also good and a teaspoon will do in a tumbler.
I had a minor epiphany about this having made frozen Negronis during a heatwave in 2018; they seemed like they would be the answer to everything, but they weren’t even good, they were raw and jarring. I couldn’t understand why until much later when I realised it was because they were missing an ingredient: water, normally supplied by melting ice during chilling.
Daniel Waddy and Kevin Armstrong, Roundbuilding. They go into this in great and precise detail because it is fundamental.
Apparently Stanley Tucci does, I now find.
There’s a tendency now to only use tumblers but e.g. Michael Jackson’s Bar Book, The Savoy Cocktail Book and Philip Greene’s To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion all have a cocktail glass/coupe as either the recommended glassware or an option.
Apparently the more mottled oranges have the most oil and are best. Someone on Reddit: “The more your oranges resemble an old man's nose, the better they are for expressing over a drink.”
This is only partly because I have a small Meyer lemon tree in a pot; the fruits/peel really do go well, despite the peel being fairly smooth (see footnote above). The trees are quite robust, can go in a big pot (you might need to bring it in during frosts), and with a little effort you can easily harvest >20 fruits per year once they settle in.
The only reference to this I can now find is something I wrote in 2015 but I’m sure I said it with good reason.
Henry Jeffreys’ Home Bar Book is also well worth buying, though you’ll need to find a secondhand copy unless it’s reissued. (The link here is actually to a piece he wrote about the book, which includes the interesting, wide-ranging introduction.)
Kingsley Amis (Everyday Drinking): “This [the Negroni] is a really fine invention. It has the power, rare with drinks and indeed anything else, of cheering you up. This may be down to the Campari, said by its fans to have great restorative power.” Hemingway actually seems to have got his Negroni wrong in Across the River and Into the Trees, confusing it with the Americano, but he also mentions both the Negroni and the Americano as distinct drinks in a short story called The Good Lion (“But the good lion would sit and fold his wings and ask politely if he might have a Negroni or an Americano … One day he refused to eat eight Masai cattle and only ate some tagliatelle and drank a glass of pomodoro.”). Audrey Hepburn was said to have served Negronis at parties when filming Roman Holiday (1953); Orson Welles famously said in an interview in 1947 when also filming in Rome, “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.” (There seemed to be a bit of a thing for the Negroni after the Second World War.) According to Robert Simonson in 3-Ingredient Cocktails, Rudolph Nureyev drank them and Tennessee Williams has his characters drink them in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone.
Thanks for quoting from my book!