The legend of the Negroni weaves a path through a century of cocktail culture, literature and movie lore, accompanied by its constant companion ANGOSTURA® aromatic bitters.
What’s a hundred years between friends.
With Negroni Week fast approaching, it’s time to revisit some of the highlights of these companions in nightlife sipping, and mull over some of the stories they can tell between them.
- The centuries fly by when you’re talking cocktail culture… it was 200 years ago that the bartender’s indispensable standby, ANGOSTURA® aromatic bitters was created, a mere 100 years since the Negroni joined the list of cocktail classics we all know and love… and both are as fresh and taste-tantalisingly relevant today as they were when they first hit the scene.
Born in the Jazz Age
Cast your mind back 100 years to the beginning of the Roaring Twenties. The Great War was over (it wasn’t called World War 1 back then for obvious reasons), they’d survived an influenza pandemic, and the younger generation were casting off austerity and getting ready to party. It was the Jazz Age, the era of The Great Gatsby. Gramophone records played the Charleston, cocktail parties were all the rage, a dash of ANGOSTURA® bitters livened up every Old Fashioned. Women bobbed their hair, threw away corsets, and learned to drive a Model T Ford.
In America under Prohibition the cocktail culture flourished like never before. As secret speakeasies and clandestine stills generally produced dubious quality hooch, mixing up colourful cocktails to mellow the roughness of the home-brewed spirit was the answer. Meanwhile in Europe there were no such restrictions on bars, and patrons and bartenders were at liberty to extemporise at will (with better quality gin), which is, according to legend, how the Negroni was born.
The most popular version of the story has Count Camillo Negroni striding into his favourite bar, Caffe Casoni in Florence, Italy. His regular order is an Americano (Campari, sweet vermouth and soda water) but he needs something stronger, so asks his friend, bartender Forsco Scarselli, to strengthen the drink by replacing the soda water with gin. Somewhere along the way a dash of ANGOSTURA® aromatic bitters was added to the recipe, along with Scarselli’s signature slice of orange, and a soon-to-be classic was born.
Stirring Literature and La Dolce Vita
Author Ernest Hemingway was a huge fan of the Negroni, referencing the recipe in his novel Across the River and Into the Trees. English writer (and notable drinker) Kingsley Amis wrote of the Negroni that “it has the power, rare with drinks and indeed with anything else, of cheering you up”. Tennessee Williams in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone has his protagonist drinking a Negroni in a Rome nightclub. Her progression from the relatively harmless Americano cocktail to the strength of the spirit-forward Negroni symbolises her seduction by Italian decadence (and an Italian lover) as the plot progresses.
The cocktail is inseparably intertwined with the glamour of Rome on-screen and off, especially in the golden era of filmmaking through the 1950s and ‘60’s, when the film studio complex Cinecittà was at its height. Orson Welles became a fan of the Negroni when filming the 1947 movie Black Magic in Rome. He is quoted as saying “The bitters are excellent for your health, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other out.” He doesn’t mention whether they were ANGOSTURA® bitters, but there’s a high likelihood that they were! Audrey Hepburn served Negronis at her Rome house parties while filming Roman Holiday in 1953. And the cocktail makes many a cameo appearance in Fellini’s 1960 cult film La Dolce Vita.
James Bond is another fan of the Negroni when in Rome… In his 1960 short story Risiko (part of For Your Eyes Only), author Ian Fleming has 007 ordering a Negroni, “With Gordon’s, please.” when he meets his arch-nemisis, double agent Aris Kristatos, at a glamorous hotel in the city of la dolce vita.
The 21st Century on the Rocks
Fast-forward to the 21st century when the negroni has become an established symbol of sophistication and discernment on the cocktail scene, with multiple riffs on the original appearing in bars all over the world. George Clooney once referred to the Negroni as his “desert island” libation, and Stanley Tucci stirred up strong feelings about the cocktail, when he turned conventional Negroni wisdom on its head. While aficionados advise that it should be built, not shaken, Tucci courts controversy by saying, “Most people have Negronis on the rocks, but I think they’re quite nice up,” as he shakes not stirs in a YouTube video that went viral in 2021 (perhaps taking a page from 007’s book).
Negroni Week 2024
As Negroni Week approaches, it’s time to channel your favourite movie or literary era from the past century. Head out to Neighbarhood in Randburg, Capital Craft Beer Academy in Pretoria, fable or Our Local @ 117 Kloof in Cape Town between 16-22 September and sip the sophisticated cocktail slowly stirred with just enough bitterness from Campari and a dash of ANGOSTURA® bitters to take you back in time to an equally glamorous age of cocktail culture.
These popular spots will be participating in Negroni Week where a percentage of each negroni ordered goes to support Slow Food’s mission to foster a more equitable and sustainable world of food and beverage.
Trinidad and Tobago is known for throwing a good party, as their legendary carnivals attest. Look out for anniversary parties around the world, the new product releases and the commemorative limited editions… it’s not every year a company joins the rarefied and elite ranks of the 200 club, so you can be sure that ANGOSTURA® will be celebrating in style.
