The Negroni Leoni by Michael Neff of Ward III and The Rum House, New York City (Credit: Paul Wagtouicz)
Until just a few years ago, the Negroni was an insiders' secret. The classic Italian cocktail--equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth, allegedly invented in 1919 and named for Count Camillo Negroni--was a secret handshake, a sign to bartenders that you knew what you liked, and how to order it.
"The negroni is simple yet complex in flavor, polarizing and made with a triumvirate of ingredients that add up to more than the sum of their parts," says self-declared negroni freak Naren Young of Saxon + Parole in New York.
Its simplicity has also made it something of a blank canvas for bartenders across the country, whose variations go far beyond the basic, involving rum, bourbon, and a panoply of esoteric liqueurs and aperitifs that have recently come onto the U.S. market. The progenitor of all these twists is the negroni sbagliato, a variation made with prosecco instead of gin that, the origin story goes, was a happy accident, says Jacques Bezuidenhout, the master mixologist for Kimpton Hotels.
"My friend Livio Lauro tells the story that a bartender in Milan [at the famed Bar Basso] mistakenly grabbed the prosecco instead of the gin," Bezuidenhout says. "An apprentice may have switched a couple of bottles around, so when the head bartender grabbed what would normally be gin, something else was in hand. When you are a busy bartender, anything can happen."
But rather than send back the incorrect--or, in Italian, sbagliato--cocktail, Bezuidenhout says, "the guest approved of the taste before it was too late to take it away."
Saxon + Parole's Young says that's no surprise. "The sbagliato is one of the greatest brunch or 'sundowner' drinks you will ever put to your lips," he tells me.
These days, American bartenders are adding Domain de Canton ginger liqueur or Gran Classico bitter instead of Campari, swapping in mezcal for gin, adding blood-orange juice for a dash of citrusy sweetness. Young has even started bottling versions of the drink at Saxon + Parole, while the head barkeep at another New York bar is barrel-conditioning his twist on the negroni.
Whatever the contemporary spin, the combination of Campari and sprezzatura is what keeps all these variations in the negroni family, bartenders say.
"For me it's all about the Campari and that connection to Italy that makes a negroni," says Kenneth McCoy, a co-proprietor of New York's Ward III cocktail bar. "The two are synonymous, like Guinness and Ireland."
Experimenting at home is also quite easy. My own happened, as is almost always the case, out of necessity. Holiday entertaining had depleted my supply of sweet vermouth, but I still had a stock of Death's Door Gin and a bottle of Campari handy. Mixing them with a bit of San Pellegrino's grapefruit soda--which amplified the flavors of the Campari--rounded out the refreshing yet sturdy cocktail.
To call my creation a negroni sbagliato wouldn't be quite right, though: It had gin but no prosecco. And so, drawing inspiration from the text on the side of the soda can, I dubbed it the negroni sbagliato sbagliato, deploying the Italian language tick that turns the repetition of the word "broken" into an emphatic boast.
Broken it may have been, but for me, it was just right--and much more than the sum of its parts. **
Note: All of these recipes yield one drink.
Cary Goldberg of Restaurant Marc Forgione, New York City
2.5 oz. Bulldog gin
1 oz. oak-aged Dolin Blanc vermouth
1 oz. Domain de Canton
This cocktail is made with vermouth aged on the bar in a two-liter white oak barrel for at least two days. Combine ingredients, stir, and serve on the rocks with a lemon rind garnish.
Michael Neff of Ward III and The Rum House, New York City
1.5 oz. Santa Teresa 1796 rum
.5 oz. Ilegal Joven mezcal
.5 oz. Dolin Sweet vermouth
.25 oz. Campari
Combine ingredients, stir, and serve in a rocks glass over two ice cubes. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Sam Ross of Hinoki & The Bird, Los Angeles
1.5 oz. gin
0.75 oz. Amere Sauvage
0.75 oz. Dolin Bianco vermouth
Combine ingredients, stir on ice, and garnish with a grapefruit twist.
Sam Ross of Hinoki & The Bird, Los Angeles
1 oz. Smith + Cross Jamaican rum
1 oz. Gran Classico
1 oz. Carpano Antica Formula
Combine ingredients, stir on ice, and garnish with an orange twist.
Mariena Mercer of The Chandelier Bar at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
1 oz. Plymouth gin
1 oz. Carpano Antica
1 oz Campari
.5 oz. blood orange juice
.5 oz. ginger-blood orange syrup
Assemble all ingredients with 2 oz. purified water. Load into iSi charger and charge with CO2. Funnel into individual 187-milliliter champagne bottles. (These can be bought online.) Cap with bottle capper.
Naren Young of Saxon + Parole, New York City
8 oz. Beefeater gin
6 oz. Campari
6 oz. Dolin Rouge vermouth
Stir over ice then strain into a foam gun and charge with CO2. Funnel 2.5 oz. of this mix into individual 187 ml champagne bottles. Top each with a dry sparkling wine then cap with bottle capper. Keep very cold.
Tribeca Canvas, New York City
.5 oz. Morimoto Shochu
1 oz. Campari
.5 oz. Bombay gin
1 oz. sweet vermouth
Combine ingredients, stir and serve over ice, garnished with an orange slice.
Red Rooster Harlem, New York City
2 oz. fig-and-pear-infused bourbon (recipe follows)
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth
In a mixing glass, combine all ingredients with ice. Stir for 90 seconds and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a slice of orange.
Fig-and-pear-infused bourbon: In an airtight container, combine: one liter bourbon; two sliced and seeded figs; two sliced and seeded pears; and the seeds and pod of one halved, scraped vanilla bean. Let infuse at least two weeks, but no more than three, before straining.
Jacques Bezuidenhout, Fifth Floor, San Francisco
1.25 oz. Del Maguey Tobala mezcal
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or old-fashioned glass. Garnish with an orange twist.
Note: These recipes have not been tested by the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen.
Paul Brady is a Brooklyn-based travel writer and an associate editor at The Huffington Post. He blogs mostly about travel at paulbrady.tumblr.com.