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Drink of the Month - May 2010                                                 Back to Drink of the Month

Negroni

According to Wikipedia:

The Negroni cocktail is made of 1 part gin, 1 part sweet vermouth, and 1 part bitters, traditionally Campari. It is considered an apéritif, a pre-dinner cocktail intended to stimulate the appetite.

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. 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."

Negroni Cocktail Ingredients

·         1/3 campari

·         1/3 Martini Rosso

·         1/3 gin

·         slice orange

Instructions

• mix the alcohol well. Fill up a big glass with ice (big cubes). Pour in the mix. Add a slice of orange.

For the extra touch, try a burnt orange garnish (http://www.cocktailtimes.com/gin/negroni.shtml)

Garnish with a burnt orange. To make a burnt orange, cut about a 1 1/2 inch by 1 inch peel off a ripe navel orange. Be sure to get just the skin and as little of the pith as possible. Holding the orange peel between thumb and index fingers with skin facing out, hold a lit match over the glass and with the orange peel about an inch away from the flame squeeze the peel quickly and firmly between your fingers. When done correctly, a burst of flame will come from the oils being released from the peel leaving an aroma and adding a note of orange to the cocktail. Simply drop the twist in the drink.

Enjoy!!