Wiz: “Would you guys like a negroni?”
Boyd: “I don’t know what that is.”
Wynn: “It’s Italian. Tastes like grapefruit.”

This conversation between three characters in US television-series Justified is underselling the beauty of one of Italy’s most famous cocktails – and the history behind its ingredients, which stretches as far back as the Greeks and Romans, who were known for steeping aromatic herbs in liquids. During those times, there was some understanding that these potions could help aid digestion, which was scientifically confirmed by the “godfather of modern Italian cooking”, Pellegrino Artusi, in his 1891 classic La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well).

Artusi had long suffered from digestive problems and was himself partial to a liqueur made from bitter walnuts, known as nocino. The Italian word for “bitter” is amaro, and such bitter herbal liqueurs, like nocino, Cynar (artichoke-based) and Fernet Branca are thought to help with everything from aiding digestion to acting as a cure for flatulence, cramps, colic and even cholera.

But serving a bitter drink before a meal, as an appetite-sharpener or aperitivo (from the Latin aperire, “to open”), may well have taken off with Gaspare Campari. Back in the 1840s the drinks maker from Lombardy created a bitter liqueur from a still-secret recipe containing up to 60 different herbs, spices, barks and fruit peels, including something called chinotto (a bitter citrus fruit) and cascarilla (the bitter, aromatic bark of a West Indian shrub). As unappetising as it sounds, the trend caught on, and by the time Signor Campari opened Caffè Camparino near Milan’s Duomo, his bright-red liqueur had became the aperitivo del giorno.

By the 1860s, Caffè Camparino was serving the Milano-Torino – Campari with Punt e Mes, a bittersweet vermouth from Torino. The story goes that around the 1900s, Americans who found the MiTo too bitter were asking for soda to be added, thus creating the long and less sharp drink we now know as the Americano, which became famous as James Bond’s first-ever drink in Ian Fleming’s debut Bond novel, Casino Royale. It is almost universally believed that the Americano morphed into a negroni at some time between 1919 and 1920, when a certain moustachioed Count Camillo Negroni (who else?) walked into Bar Casoni in Florence and asked the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, for something a little stronger. Scarselli swapped soda for gin, added a twist of orange peel, and the negroni was born.

Or was it? Extensive research by UK-based barman, Ben Leggett, has now revealed that as far back as 1907 – more than a decade earlier – Arnaldo Strucchi referred to an Americano in his book, Il Vermouth di Torino, that sounded remarkably like a negroni (one part Campari, one part vermouth, one part gin and a twist of orange peel). But why let facts get in the way of a good story? Made from pure alcohol, save for the orange zest, the negroni has long been considered a masculine drink, but surprisingly, it doesn’t make the rather tenuously named “Top 10 Cocktails for Men”.

But who needs to be on a list when famous negroni lovers include Orson Welles, George Clooney and London’s most famous cocktail legend, Tony Conigliaro? And what other cocktail has an entire week dedicated to it? Starting in America in 2013, Negroni Week asks participating restaurants and bars to donate US$1 to charity for every negroni served. In just two years, Negroni Week expanded to 3,500 participating venues across 42 countries, and last year raised $321,000 – which accounts for a lot of negronis.

Today, the negroni is one of the simplest cocktails to make, but why stop there? Other incarnations include a negroni “sbagliato”, which is topped with sparkling wine or Prosecco, and if the gin is switched for vodka, the negroni becomes a “negroski”. Cocktail aficionados can also experiment at home, thanks to the Negroni family creating a ready-made version called Antico Negroni 1919. In 2016, Tony Conigliaro followed suit, launching his first pre-mixed negroni cocktail.

FOUR PLACES TO TRY A NEGRONI ACROSS EUROPE:

THE AGE-OLD

AT THE ORIGINAL

A LEGEND’S MIX

VENETIAN STYLE