Aperitivo Bitter Liqueurs

Where it started

Campari's own timeline dates the recipe to 1860, when Gaspare Campari created it, and says it has not been altered since.¹ In 1867 he moved into Milan's new Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and opened Caffè Campari; by 1904 demand had moved production to a plant in Sesto San Giovanni; and in 1915 his son Davide opened the Camparino bar in the Galleria.¹

Aperol came later and from Padua. The Barbieri company was founded there in 1891, and Giuseppe Barbieri's sons Luigi and Silvio created Aperol in 1919 for the Padua International Fair.² Difford's notes that the idea of an 11 percent aperitif did not take off until after the Second World War, and that Gruppo Campari has owned the brand since 2003.²

The cocktails followed. The Milano-Torino paired Campari from Milan with sweet vermouth from Turin; add soda and it becomes the Americano.³ The usual Negroni story puts Count Camillo Negroni at a Florence bar in 1919, asking for gin in place of the soda.³ Campari's own timeline simply places the Americano and the Negroni at the start of the 1920s.¹ Both versions are stories; neither is a document.

Where and how it's made

These are infusions: bitter roots, barks, peels and herbs steeped in neutral spirit, sweetened, and colored. Aperol's flavor and orange color come from a secret infusion of 16 ingredients, among them bitter orange, gentian, cinchona and rhubarb, and it is bottled without aging.²

In EU law a red bitter can be a liqueur (15 percent and up, with a sweetening floor) or a "bitter-tasting spirit drink", also with a 15 percent minimum and a predominantly bitter taste.⁴ Aperol, at 11 percent, sits well below that floor.² A separate EU family covers wine-based bitters: "bitter vino" is an aromatised wine flavored mainly with gentian, and "bitter soda" is a bitter vino drink topped with carbonated water at 8 to under 10.5 percent alcohol.⁵

How to taste it

Taste a splash neat first to learn the bitterness, then as it is meant to be drunk: over ice with soda, or with sparkling wine and a slice of orange. Look for citrus pith, rhubarb and gentian. Pairings: potato chips, green olives, salty cured meats.

Styles and what the label means

• Red bitter — the bitter red base of the Americano and the Negroni.³
• Orange aperitivo — lower strength and sweeter, the spritz base.²
• Bitter vino / Americano — wine-based bitters under the EU aromatised-wine rules. vermouth-and-aromatized-wine →
• Amaro — the darker, after-dinner relatives. amaro →