Aperitivo guide: Campari
“Caffè dell’Amicizia” (Café of Friendship) is located in Novara. In 1860 Novara was a mini architectonic Turin and a mini Milan for its contacts with the outside world. In short, you could happen there, and when you happened there you stopped in the cafés.
Gaspare Campari served his Café’s customers a drink called “Bitter all’uso d’Hollandia” which later became the famous Bitter.
Gaspare moved to Milan and founded “Campari”, the company we all know today. Than the advertising avant-garde came, Depero and “L’ora del Campari”.
Today we’ll go into the whats, the hows and the “how you drink” about Campari.
It’s an infusion of herbs, plants and fruits such as pink rhubarb and oranges in food-grade alcohol. It is 25% ABV and it is usually consumed as an aperitif. The dark amber infusion is colored with carmine dye obtained from Brasilian bred cochineal insects, used only to extract this colour. To be served straight and very cold, in a cold glass, filled with a generous splash of selz. Or with ice, or mixed in a shaker.
Later, when Gaspare’s ideas met the tastes of Count Camillo Negroni of Florence and those of the young barman Fosco Sarselli, the “usual” Negroni was born: an Americano with some Gin added.
Negroni is easy to remember and to prepare: the glass is strictly a low one, large and cylinder-shaped. Ice should be crystal clear. A mat or old and crumbled ice leaves much more water while cooling, easily watering down your drink.
There’s an erroneous belief about the quantity of ice in a drink: the more ice you put, the more water you’ll have in your drink. That’s not true: not much ice, 1 or 2 ice-cubes, is an easier condition of watering down than 5 or 6 ice-cubes.
Freezing the glass and draining the water formed by cooling is a good practice. Then you pour into the glass one part of gin, one part of sweet red vermouth and one part of Campari. Then turn carefully from bottom to top and add the decoration: half a slice of orange.
For the a classic old style Negroni just add a splash of selz and lemon rind with the orange.
Never put pulp, Gaspare would have asked you to leave the café. And in Novara it is advisable to stay in the cafés, as it is always foggy: no matter if it’s a sunny or a cloudy day.
