For this newsletter I will skip the preamble and get straight to a drink:
Negroni Sbagliato:
25ml Campari
25ml Italian Vermouth
~50ml Prosecco
Stir with ice the Campari and vermouth, once ice cold add to a coupe, or flute, glass and top up with chilled prosecco, an orange twist works well. Can also be served over ice in a tumbler with a slice of orange.
Now you have fixed yourself one, or maybe a few and have anaesthetised the day, I will jump into some discussion of the drink and its family.
This is a rather interesting drink, with its name meaning a mistaken Negroni, as it is halfway between the Negroni and its parent drink the Americano (also known as a Milano Torino after the places of origin of Campari and a popular Italian Vermouth).
Americano:
25ml Campari
25ml Italian Vermouth
~50ml Soda Water
Stir over ice in a tumbler, and garnish with an orange slice.
Negroni:
25ml Camp
ari
25ml Italian Vermouth
25ml Gin
Stir over ice in a tumbler, garnish with an orange slice.
The idea that it was invented by mistake is nice to emphasise, even if not true, as it shows how flexible cocktails can be. It is always worth trying things and seeing what happens taste-wise. I do say that it is most likely not true as it is rather unlikely that such a perfect drink that is perfectly in between the Americano and Negroni was just a mistake. It takes the longer drinkability of the soda in an Americano and blends it with the strength of the Negroni's gin.
I would suggest you could also play around with this and make variants. For instance, the prosecco can be replaced with white wine mixed with soda (and this way of blending soda with white wine to simulate sparkling wine works in many questions). I also have had success using a very dry cider in place of prosecco.
As many people find Campari to be rather bitter, like my brother who you have to thank for the photo quality this time, I understand that the recipe I gave can be quite bitter, so feel free to cut down on Campari and upping the vermouth.
Now to come to what I find most interesting about these few cocktails – their names and how they came about.
As I mentioned previously the Americano is previously known as the Milano Torino based on where the ingredients are from. It then came to be known as an Americano as it was very popular with Americans in Italy, in a rather similar way the Americano Coffee got its name.
Now onto the more contentious part. The Negroni has some debate about its name. The general story goes that a certain Count Negroni walked into a bar and asked for a stronger Americano, and so the barman swapped the soda for gin which he had to hand. This is most likely true in that a Negroni is a strengthened Americano, but the identity of the Negroni it is named after is not quite so clear – and is frankly irrelevant.
The Negroni Sbagliato gets its name as it is seen as a mistaken form of Negroni. This works well enough in terms of cocktail names but I feel it is more likely it was made intentionally.
In many ways, cocktail names are capricious things that change and are up to the bar or writer naming them. As such you will have some very authoritative cocktail guides disagreeing with each other, or giving variants to try and iron out the inconsistencies.
I can also understand why many bars use certain names, e.g. A Gin and Dubonnet, rather than calling it a Queen Mother, as any name that describes ingredients will be more easily understood by customers. Inversely names are often used to try and hitch any old drink to a more famous one, e.g. a Pornstar Martini has nothing to do with a real Martini.
Plus when making a drink it might well fit into a family of drinks so could be described but instead might be named after a person or theme. This can lead to multiple drinks being made in different places with overlapping names.
And whilst this can be a bit annoying, I rather do like it. It would be quite dull if all the names were ordered, and it gives a chance for me to invent names at will, without really having to worry if there is a similar drink already in existence. For instance, I can on the spur of the moment invent The Carthusian Dream knowing that although a similar iteration has been done before, this specific variant is my own.
The Carthusian Dream:
25ml Cognac
25ml Cointreau
5ml Green Chartreuse
Shake with plenty of ice and serve in a chilled coupe glass.
This has been a rather short newsletter, but normal service will resume on Wednesday for a Christmas focused special, covering festive cocktails, some beers, and a bit of a digression into Port.
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