History and story behind the Negroni cocktail

Origins

The origins of many cocktails are often the subject of debate, but in the case of the Negroni, it's an interchange that has become quite heated. Negroni is a very old family name, and it seems to have different branches, or not, as the case may be, not to mention the fact that Italian and French pride is at stake.

By most popular accounts, the Negroni affords its origins in an aperitivo popular in Northern Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Gaz Regan in The Negroni writes "thanks to Dom Costa, we know that the Negroni was from the loins of the Americano, the Americano was based on the Milano-Torino, and in turn, the Milano-Torino was a variation on the Torino-Milano". The Milano-Torino incidentally takes its name from the geographical origins of its two main ingredients: equal parts Campari (from Milan) and rosso vermouth (from Turin).

The Milano-Torino is said to have been invented in the 1860s at the Caffe Camparino in Milan, which was owned by Gaspare Campari. The drink was popular with Americans who, during this period of economic improvement and cheaper travel, were out and about in the world exerting their influence, which in this instance included requesting the addition of a dash of soda water in their Milano-Torinos, thus giving birth to the Americano.

However, both Dale Degroff in The Essential Cocktail and Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown in A Spirituous Journey take the view that the Milano-Torino already contained soda, and it was simply renamed as the Americano because Americans liked it. Other reasons are suggested as to why the drink took that name, but this is not a history of the Americano.

The Count

The story then runs that in 1919, one Italian-born Count Camillo Negroni (1868-1933), a reputed wideboy and regular customer at the Casoni Bar (later named Caffé Giacosa) on Tornabuoni Street in Florence, Italy, one day asked for a bit more kick in his Americano. The bartender, Fosco Scarselli (1898-1963), responded by switching the soda water for gin, and the combination became the Count's usual order. Other patrons of the bar soon started to ask for "one of Count Negroni's drinks", and after a while, the drink simply became known as a Negroni.

The flamboyant count is said to have returned to Florence when prohibition was initiated in America, having spent time as a cowboy in the Wild West and gambler in New York.

It seems a shame to squash a romantic story, but Colonel Hector Andres Negroni, in what has turned into quite a vitriolic argument, is emphatic that there is "no Count Camillo Negroni in the Negroni Family Genealogy, which dates back to the 11th Century... the true inventor of the Negroni Cocktail was General Pascal Oliver Comte de Negroni." The Colonel made this remark as a customer review on Amazon feedback for Luca Picchi's book Sulle tracce del conte. La vera storia del cocktail Negroni. Luca Picchi, for years head bartender at the caffé Rivoire in Piazza della Signora around the corner from Caffé Giacosa so, "knows more about the Negroni's history than anyone else", according to Alice Lascelles in her 2015 Ten Cocktails.

The Colonel is not alone in his view. In an article entitled "New Evidence Negroni was Invented in Africa - Sorry Italy", published by Drinking Cup, we are told that General Pascal Oliver Comte de Negroni was a Frenchman who fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and that during a soirée with his friends "introduced the Lunéville Officers Club to his signature "vermouth-based cocktail", a drink now believed to the true source of the Negroni cocktail." It appears that this wing of the Negroni family can produce letters in support of their claims for a vermouth-based cocktail.

Hard Evidence

As far as hard evidence for the early existence of the Negroni in its own right goes, we turn to Gary Regan, who in his The Joy of Mixology, says that the first printed recipes he was able to find for "one of the world's finest drinks" are in two 1955 publications: The U.K.B.G Guide to Drinks compiled by the United Kingdom Bartenders' Guild and Cocktail and Oscar Haimo's Wine Digest published in New York.

Andrew Willet, in his blog Elemental Mixology, has sourced a reference to the Negroni in Horace Sutton's 1950 book Footloose in Italy, "in the book, he suggests a couple of drinks he found to be native to Italy - the Negroni and the Cardinale". Sutton's account of the Negroni, however, additionally includes seltzer. The earliest recipe we could source was in Jacinto Sanfeliu Brucart's 1949 book El Bar: Evolución y arte del cocktail, which has a Negroni recipe that is ¼ gin, ¼ Italian vermouth and ½ Campari. And then, of course, there is the reputed Orson Welles quote (above) of 1947, which he is said to have made in correspondence with the Coshocton Tribune while filming Black Magic in Rome.

The Camparinete and Campari Mixte

Much earlier than any printed references to the Negroni, there are printed recipes for cocktails that are almost the same as the Negroni and, in one instance, exactly the same.

Doug Ford, in his blog Cold Glass, writes, "There had been a gin-heavy Campari blend called the Camparinete since the 19th century; I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Campari re-jiggered that drink's proportions, attached a plausible story, and the rest was what passes for history."

Jim Meehan, in his The PDT Cocktail Book, says, "The combination of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, showed up in French and Spanish cocktail books such as J S Brucart's 1943 Cien Cocktails and L'Heure du Cocktail before being recognized universally as the Negroni. The Camparinete in Cien Cocktails is ¼ Campari, ¼ Italian vermouth and ½ dry gin. No garnish."

I found an earlier reference to the Camparinete (which is why I've gone with this spelling rather than Camparinette) in Boothby's 1934 World Drinks and How to Mix Them, the recipe is in the same ratios as the Cien Cocktail recipe: ½ jigger gin, ¼ jigger It. Vermouth, ¼ jigger Campari, served with a twist of lemon peel.

But most fascinating of all, the recipe for the Campari Mixte in L'heure du Cocktail, published in 1929, is equal parts gin, Campari, and Italian vermouth with a lemon zest, which is quite clearly a Negroni. This recipe is the earliest reference to a drink with the same ingredients as a Negroni mixed in equal parts.

The Boulevardier

It is worth interjecting at this point that two years earlier a cocktail called the Boulevardier, which was made for Erskine Gwynne by Harry McElhone at his Harry's New York Bar in Paris, appears in his 1927 book, Barflies and Cocktails. Like Harry, Erskine Gwynne was an American expatriate, but he was also a socialite, nephew of railroad tycoon Alfred Vanderbilt, and, most importantly for this story, edited a monthly magazine called The Boulevardier, hence the drink's name. An advert for the magazine appears at the back of the book.

With its one-and-a-half shots of bourbon whiskey, a single shot of sweet vermouth, and a single shot of Campari Bitter, McElhone's Boulevardier is remarkably similar to a Negroni, with the bourbon replacing the gin.

Advertisement in the back of the 1927 Barflies and Cocktails

Or was it invented in America?

To throw another cat in with the pigeons, Andrew Willet (Elemental Mixology) sees links to the Negroni in George Kappeler's 1895 recipe for the Dundorado Cocktail published in Modern American Drinks in Chicago:

Andrew Willet writes, "Calisaya Bitters were (and are again) also cinchona bitters - featuring Cinchona calisaya. Campari features Cinchona officinalis. Calisaya bitters are a bit less sweet than Campari bitters. With this in mind, we find that the Dundorado Cocktail is very close to the Camparinete Cocktail, differing only in which type of London-style gin it is based upon, which variant of cinchona bitters it is bittered with, and in the proportion of those bitters to the other liquors." Perhaps.