Whether you actually love it or just love to hate it, the Negroni is firmly ensconced in classic cocktail canon. Its equal parts (one ounce each in this case) of bold gin, Campari and sweet vermouth are stirred with ice and strained into a glass where sweet battles bitter for flavor supremacy. The viscous liquid’s orangey glow is unmistakable from across the bar. While the translucent ingredients filling a coupe or a martini glass could easily include gin, vodka, half vermouth or a decent dose of olive brine, a Negroni is always itself, even at a glance. And it owes a bit of that inimitability to its boozy antecedent: the Americano.
Although it is fair to assume that people have been tinkering with all manner of recipes in peaceful anonymity for time immemorial, plenty of food and drinks have agreed upon origin stories. And a common account in the Negroni’s case is that one Count Camillo Negroni essentially ideated the libation when he ordered a boozier version of the Americano at a bar in Florence, Italy in 1919. And swapping the Americano’s typical soda water for gin amid the standard Campari and vermouth sure would do the job. Now, other accounts doubt that such a count even existed, but it’s a charming tale nonetheless and one that plausibly traces the Negroni from the Americano.
An Americano in Italia: the Mediterranean tipple beloved by Yanks
To further complicate things, there is also a caffeinated Americano made with espresso and hot water. This isn’t that. The Americano up for discourse today is that Negroni precursor made much more lightly than its predecessor, with soda water, sweet vermouth, and Campari. And its creation, we are crestfallen to report, is absent any counts of dubious corporeality.
The Americano (cocktail), instead, is also said to have been birthed in Italy, this time farther north in Milan in the late 1800s at Gaspare Campari’s titular bar (Campari having totally been a real guy). While tinkering with ingredients as they are wont to do, Campari’s bartenders purportedly landed on a combination that would ultimately become particularly popular with visitors of a Yankee Doodle persuasion, and thus the drink was christened. Which is all plausible enough. But wait until you hear about the giddy invention of the Negroni sbagliato with prosecco in it.
