PERFECT SERVE
COUNT OF COCKTAILS
“WHEN MADE CORRECTLY IT IS A PERFECT BALANCE OF ALCOHOLIC STRENGTH, BITTERNESS, SWEETNESS, AND CITRUS FLAVOURS,” SAID AUSTRALIA’S 2006 BARTENDER OF THE YEAR, OLIVER STUART. “ALL THE WHILE REMAINING FLORAL AND REFRESHING YET STRONG AND SMOOTH. YOU CAN’T STOP AFTER THE FIRST NEGRONI, AS IT LEAVES YOU CRAVING THE NEXT.”
O BELOW: Shaking it up - at South Africa’s top cocktail bar, Cause + Effect in Cape Town, is Justin Shaw who developed the local spin on a classic.
ut of four gin producers interviewed for this issue’s story on the versatile and wildly popular spirit, three said the Negroni was their favourite gin cocktail. What’s more, bartenders and mixologists are also more likely to favour a Negroni in their downtime than a Martini, Cosmopolitan or Manhattan. Various sources disagree on the origins of the cocktail – and even on the geographical location of the Count which the drink is named after. (Most cite his Italian – Florentine – roots while others say he was from Corsica.)
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What they do agree on is that it became popular in the second decade of the 20th century and that it was the refinement of a previously well loved drink dubbed the Americano. And that particular tipple has an interesting history of its own. Writing on www.eater. com in 2015, Naren Young cited the influx of Americans to Italy after Prohibition (1920 – 1933) was proclaimed in the United States for the growth of the cocktail. Already well known locally as the Milano-Torino or MiTo, it was a mix of Campari (from Milan) and Cinzano (from Turin) – but the American visitors liked a bit of fizz so asked for it to be topped off with soda water. Hence the Americano. The Campari contributed a bitter fruitiness and herbal flavour while the vermouth of Cinzano added sweet dryness. Count Camillo Negroni was a well documented lover of all things alcoholic, and needed something a little more fortifying than soda so instructed his local bartender to swop out the soda
for gin. He was known to polish off 10 – albeit small glasses – in a sitting! Soon other punters were wanting their Americano cocktail the Negroni way. Renowned film director Orson Welles was one of the first people to document the Negroni, Wikipedia reports. While working in Rome in 1947 he described the Negroni thus: “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.” The classic Negroni is one part vermouth rosso (red, semi-sweet), one part Campari and one part gin, mixed together and served over ice, garnished with a twist of orange peel. Justin Shaw, the main drink slinger behind Cape Town’s popular Cause + Effect Cocktail Kitchen which won Cocktail Bar of the Year in the recent BAR awards (along with Bar Team of the Year) has put his South African spin on this classic by utilising a local gin as well as Caperitif, a local Vermouth. (All CHEERS readers are welcome to try this at home. And if anyone is sufficiently fascinated by the story, Florentine bartender Luca Picchi is such a fan that he wrote a book: Sulle Tracce del Conte: La Vera Storia del Cocktail Negroni. Translated, it is On the trail of the Count: The True Story of the Negroni. The book was only translated a few years ago and is apparently difficult to find – even overseas!)
