Around The World With A Negroni

History

Created by Jennyfer Lee and Jorge Cordero in the Dominican Republic.

JENNYFER You can't imagine how many bizarre characters there are in the world until you open a bar in the Dominican Republic. Day after day, night after night, that bar became the meeting point of the most surprising people you can conceive of. American businessmen fleeing financial crashes, bored children of even more bored billionaires, hidden treasure hunters, coffee industrialists, snake breeders, thieves and artists.

JORGE Foremost among them, both chronologically and in terms of weirdness, was Tico: he set foot in our bar before the paint had even dried on the walls. He was tall, as thin as a rake and dressed in a spotlessly clean white suit that had seen better days. He was always clutching the handle of a battered briefcase that he never let out of his sight. For months, the only two words that we heard him say were "Negroni, thanks.

JENNYFER He came every evening at the same time. The same white suit, same table, same Negroni and above all the same briefcase. We watched him discreetly from behind the bar, trying to find out more about him.

JORGE There were stickers and stitches on that case that told a long story of travels around the world. We were dying with curiosity to learn about his adventures, like every true bartender, but we would never have asked him directly, like every true bartender.

JENNYFER By this point, Tico was a silent celebrity in our bar: other customers came up with fantastic hypotheses about him. Some people tried to make conversation with him, but received only polite smiles in return. Then one day Tico arrived before his usual time: it was sundown and the place was still empty.

JORGE Instead of sitting at his usual table, which we had begun to reserve for him, Tico came up to the bar. He told us that he would be leaving tomorrow and that he would not return, then he laid his briefcase before him, opened it and began to tell us his story.

JENNYFER We have never revealed the contents of that briefcase to anyone and we won't do today: what you say in the bar, stays in the bar. We can only say that it was full of stories: Italy, where Tico found and lost his great love; the Silk Road, where the mandarin in his pocket saved his life; the Humboldt Current and the night when, off the coast of South America, Tico traded a bottle of tequila for his freedom; the Chilean pink pepper plantation that first made him rich and then forced him to flee; the trade winds that propelled his boat to the African coast, when he only had coffee left on board. Those and many other stories filled his briefcase.

JORGE If you want to know something more about Tico's life, you have two choices: go to the best bar in your area and look for a silent man dressed in white drinking Negroni. Or come to us and order the cocktail that we have dedicated to him, named Around The World with a Negroni.

Jennyfer Lee and Jorge Cordero, 2018