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Overview
The Negroni: traditionally equal parts Campari, sweet vermouth and gin. Around 100 years old, this bittersweet, boozy dark horse of a drink has rampaged back onto drinks menus worldwide over the last decade. It may be a cocktail of acquired taste, but it's been acquired by the masses, securing its place as a facet of any good cocktail list. This beloved beverage even has a whole week dedicated to it, celebrated in Negroni-loving cocktail bars around the globe each year since 2011.
But where did this conspicuous drink pop up from? We've been asking ourselves that exact question. In honour of Negroni Week 2016, we've hit the books to put together a brief history on where the drink came from and how trends have brought it back into the spotlight. This is the boozy version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time for all you imbibers out there.
STATE OF ORIGIN
Like many cocktail histories, this one is filled with myths and legends — always a fun start. A few books have even been published on the topic, including British bartender Gary Regan's The Negroni: Drinking to La Dolce Vita and Italian bartender Luca Picchi's Sulle Tracce del Conte: La Vera Storia del Cocktail Negroni.
They've each traced the drink back to Florence in 1919, at a neat little place called Bar Casoni — the site still exists, but now houses the Caffè Giacosa pastry shop. According to dependable folklore of the day, the cocktail was born when one Count Camillo Negroni demanded a much stronger version of the Americano — an easy drinking cocktail of Campari, sweet vermouth, and club soda. There is evidence that the Count had recently spent some years abroad in the US, with some saying he was a bit of a rodeo clown, while others document his profession as a cowboy in the Wild West. Either way, he was reported to be a BAMF.
Regan's book does admit some grey area, though, and this story isn't agreed upon exclusively. An individual named Noel Negroni disputes the above version, claiming that his relative, General Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni, is actually the man who came up with the recipe. Whatever the case, we like the idea of any Count being involved in the creation of a classic.
FROM BLACK HOLE OBSCURITY TO A COCKTAIL FOR THE CLASSY
So how did such a hard man's drink become a classy night time affair? Even as recently as the '90s, the Negroni had remained a quiet backgrounder that was only ordered by the very few in the know. While the exact moment that the drink went from obscurity to a cocktail list staple is unknown, there are a few contributing factors.
The slow rise in worldwide Negroni interest has been suggested by many, including Conde Naste Traveller, as partly due to the resurgence in the popularity of gin and bitters around the globe. Even on a local scale, small-batch producers of gin (Distillery Botanica, Archie Rose, Poor Toms, Four Pillars, Young Henry's Noble Cut Gin among them), have helped the recent gin obsession in Australia, which ran hand-in-hand with the trend toward 'keeping it local'. On the bitters side, Angostura started this push, Australian Bitters joined the party, and many bars now make their own.
With two-thirds of the cocktail's ingredients riding a popularity wave worldwide, the next step — a full-fledged menu invasion by Negroni — was a simple one. When the 'new age' Negroni was reintroduced to world by Campari in 2011, patrons were used to seeing gin and bitters in their drinks and their taste buds were more than ready for it.
Heartbreaker, Melbourne.
THE BIG BANG OF NEGRONIS
The rise of the Negroni took place nearly a century after the drink was christened. Italian liquor company Campari pulled the pieces of the puzzle together in 2011, declaring it 'The Year of the Negroni' and widely distributing the recipe. Their celebration included the creation of the world's largest Negroni at the annual Tales of the Cocktail festival in New Orleans. The year-long focus rooted the drink in the minds of bartenders and, subsequently, drinkers everywhere.
While the inaugural Negroni Week included only 100 Stateside bars, the 2015 Negroni Week expanded to 3500 venues across 42 countries — including Australia. The drink itself has evolved in the last few years — from barrel aged and Negroni on tap to entire bars dedicated to the stuff, but the photogenic cocktail doesn't seem to be fading from menus anytime soon. From Italy to Australia, bartenders are coming up with new and better ways to serve you this classic. You can get a salted caramel and coffee Negroni, a Negroni made with juniper or burnt orange, and even a "cheeky" Negroni that uses an Aperol and Lillet Blanc reinvention.
We'll leave you with this apropos statement by Orson Wells about Negronis, as quoted in the The Coshocton Tribune, which we think best sums up the drink: "The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other." We'll cheers to that.
Negroni Week 2016 runs from June 6 – 12. Check out our list of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane's best Negronis to get you ready for a week's worth of goodness.
Via Conde Naste Traveller and Town&Country.