Negroni (cocktail)

IBA Official Cocktail

Type Cocktail

Primary alcohol by volume Gin Vermouth Campari

Served On the rocks; poured over ice

Standard garnish orange peel

Standard drinkware Old Fashioned glass

IBA specified ingredients* 3cl (one part) gin 3cl (one part) sweet red vermouth 3cl (one part) campari

NEGRONI

30 ml gin

30 ml Campari

20ml sweet red vermouth (Robyn Nevin uses Martini & Rossi)

Preparation

Stir into glass over ice, garnish and serve.

* Negroni (cocktail) recipe at International Bartenders Association

The Negroni cocktail is made of one part gin, one part sweet vermouth, and one part bitters, traditionally Campari. It is considered an apéritif, a pre-dinner cocktail intended to stimulate the appetite.

History

While the drink’s origins are obscured by time, the most widely reported version is that it was invented in Florence, Italy in 1919, at Caffè Casoni, now called Caffè Giacosa. Count Camillo Negroni invented it by asking the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, to strengthen his favorite cocktail, the Americano, by adding gin rather than the normal soda water. The bartender also added an orange garnish rather than the typical lemon garnish of the Americano to signify that it was a different drink.[1][2][3][4] After the success of the cocktail, the Negroni Family founded Negroni Distillerie in Treviso, Italy, and produced a ready-made version of the drink, sold as Antico Negroni 1919. One of the earliest reports of the drink came from Orson Welles in correspondence with the Coshocton Tribune while working in Rome on Cagliostro in 1947, where he described a new drink called the Negroni, “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.” [5]

Variations

The standard recipe is very well balanced; however there are some variants. The Negroni sbagliato (“wrong”in Italian) uses sparkling wine (e.g., prosecco) instead of gin. Negroski is a recipe with vodka again as substitute for gin. Punt e Mes Negroni instead replaces standard red vermouth with a specific, distinctively more bitter-tasted brand called Punt e Mes. 

Negroni in Popular Culture

Tennessee Williams’ The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (film and novella)[6]

Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley (vodka Negronis)[7]

In the short story Risico by Ian Fleming, James Bond orders a Negroni[8]

The Season Six episode of The Sopranos; The Blue Comet.

Wes Anderson’s film The Life Aquatic. [edit]

References

1.^ Cecchini, Toby (6 October 2002). “SHAKEN AND STIRRED; Dressing Italian”. The New York Times: p. 913. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E5DF173BF935A35753C1A9649C8B63. Retrieved 2009-12-10.

2.^ Regan, Gary (29 March 2009). “Negroni history lesson ends in a glass”. San Francisco Chronicle: p. e-6. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/27/FD8R1696QJ.DTL&type=food. Retrieved 2009-12-14.

3.^ Luca Picchi, Sulle tracce del conte. La vera storia del cocktail Negroni (On the Trail of the Count, The True Story of the Negroni Cocktail), Edizioni Plan, Florenz, ISBN 88-88719-16-4

4.^ Felten, Eric (2007). How’s Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Agate Surrey. pp. 207. ISBN 1572840897. http://books.google.com/books?id=ANSXqicDb4IC&lpg=PT68&ots=5_NiH6T8qe&dq=negroni%20%20james%20bond&pg=PT69#v=onepage&q=negroni%20%20count&f=false.

5.^ “Oxford English Dictionary negroni”. Dec 2009. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00322657?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=negroni&first=1&max_to_show=10. Retrieved 2009-12-29. “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.”

6.^ Williams, Tennessee (1950). The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.

7.^ Buckley, Christopher (1994). Thank You for Smoking. Random House. pp. 272. ISBN 0-679-43174-8.

8.^ Fleming, Ian (1960). For Your Eyes Only. Jonathan Cape.