Cocktail of the Week – Negroni

Since Cocktail of the Week started, a couple of themes have emerged:

1) The origins of cocktail names are often obscure;

2) What am I going to do with that bottle of Campari I bought?

Fortunately, this week’s cocktail covers both of these – the Negroni contains Campari and it takes its name from its creator, Count Negroni.

The story is that just after the First World War, the Count asked for his Americano, “with a little gin”. (Apparently in 1919, an Americano had nothing to do with coffee and was instead a cocktail consisting of sweet vermouth and Campari.)

Negroni

2 msr gin

1 msr sweet vermouth

3/4 msr Campari

1 msr soda water

Add alcoholic ingredients to a glass with ice and stir. Add the soda water.

It’s visually a very attractive cocktail, but Campari is bitter. (So bitter that it’s meant to be good for you…)

I’m not fan of bitter flavours, so it didn’t really work for me. (Although strangely, I’m fine with Angostura bitters.) Elinor however, really liked it so it’s probably something that lots of people would like.

In other cocktail news, I went to a local charity warehouse sale on Saturday with Elinor, Sarah and Simon. While I didn’t find a cocktail cabinet, I did find a very good cocktail recipe book. It has 750 cocktails in it, which should keep me going for a bit…