Life is Bitter
The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David Embury's classic, is notable for being somewhat rigid in its definition of a cocktail. He basically divides all of cocktail-dom into two camps: the aromatic ones (Manhattans, Martinis, Old-Fashioneds), and the sour ones (basically anything with lemon or lime juice in it, though never enough to overpower the main liquor).
For Embury, a cocktail is consumed before dinner, stimulates the appetite, and isn't very sweet - or it isn't a cocktail. As such, though mixed drinks like the Brandy Alexander and its cousins do show up on the pages of his book, they are (justifiably, though somewhat condescendingly) classified as desserts when made the traditional way (equal parts brandy, cream and creme de cacao) or grudgingly allowed to stand alongside the real cocktails when made according to his modifications (basically upping the brandy by four times the usual amount relative to the other ingredients) - though with a loud admonition that the result is vastly inferior to his tried and true favourites.
Another cocktail that is notably missing from the pages of his book is the Negroni. It's not hard to understand why when you see the standard recipe:
Negroni
- 1 part gin
- 1 part Campari
- 1 part sweet, red vermouth
The drink doesn't really fit into Embury's alcoholic taxonomy. It's certainly not a sour cocktail, and you'd be hard pressed to call it an aromatic one (the gin would have to play a much, much larger role for that designation to work). So it's left by the wayside, a victim of its undefinability. Which is a shame because it makes an excellent pre-dinner drink - the bitterness of the Campari is nothing if not appetite stimulating.
Nothing about Campari is what you'd call subtle. It's bright red, extremely bitter, very sweet and it basically turns the Negroni into a one-sided conversation. This cocktail yells at you. If you like the subject matter then you're good; if you do not, then you are most definitely not good.
The Negroni evolved from a tamer drink called the Americano. The recipe looks like this:
Americano
- 3 cl Campari
- 3 cl sweet, red vermouth
- enough soda water to fill the glass
Legend has it that the Negroni came about when an Italian, Count Camillo Negroni, asked a bartender to strengthen an Americano by swapping the soda for gin.
Like the Negroni, the Americano is absent from Embury's book. Though the book does contain a chapter on "tall drinks" or "highballs" - of which the Americano is one - they are not given the same level of prominence as the short ones.
But also note that one can still make use of Embury's methods here. The basic takeaway from The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks isn't that there is only one way of properly classifying cocktails. The lesson, rather, is that one can define the notion of a cocktail template. Embury defined such templates for sour and aromatic cocktails, but went no further.
I suppose, then, it's up to the rest of us to fill in the gaps. So let's define the Negroni template:
- 1 part liquor (often gin, but sometimes not)
- 1 part bitter
- 1 part sweet
And the Americano template:
- 1 part bitter
- 1 part sweet
- enough soda water to fill the glass
Obviously, the classic Negroni and Americano fall into those patterns but other combinations work as well. You can make, for example, an Unusual Negroni:
Unusual Negroni
- 1 part gin
- 1 part Aperol
- 1 part Lillet
Aperol is Campari's quiet little brother. It's usually classified as a bitter in the same drawer as Campari, except that it's much sweeter and more citrusy. Lillet, as I've mentioned before, has lost its quinine over the years, and hence can be used as the sweet component of this template.
Incidentally, Lillet is actually really good on its own, with a lemon wedge. I find it tastes a bit like apricot sangria. I find Aperol a bit too sweet and fruity on its own, but your mileage may vary.
In the same vein you can make the Unusual Americano
Unusual Americano
- 3 cl Aperol
- 3 cl Lillet
- top with club soda
I think I might have made up the name "Unusual Americano", but the name fits here. Both the Unusual Negroni and Unusual Americano are much sweeter than their classic counterparts. If you happen to like the bitterness of the original Negroni, but want something a bit more complex, you can try the Boulevardier:
Boulevardier
- 1 part Rye or Bourbon
- 1 part Campari
- 1 part sweet vermouth
In between the classic Negroni and the Unusual Negroni is the White Negroni, dubbed as such for fairly obvious reasons:
White Negroni
- 1 part gin
- 1 part Cocchi Americano
- 1 part Lillet
We first met Cocchi Americano in the Vesper cocktail, where it is barely detectable as a smoothing agent. It's front and center in this drink, though. The bitterness of the Cocchi Americano is more pronounced than the Aperol, though not quite as heavy as the Campari, so the White version makes a good compromise between the classic and the Unusual.
The White Negroni is actually my favourite variation. Though I am fond of the classic Negroni, I have to be in the right mood for it; it's not an easygoing drink. The White Negroni, on the other, is an easygoing drink, with just the right amount of sweet and bitter.
As before, you can make a version of the Americano out of this recipe:
White Americano
- 3 cl Cocchi Americano
- 3 cl Lillet
- top with club soda
Placating the Spirit of Embury
I will note one last thing before I go. Although the Negroni is absent from Embury's book, it's not hard to turn it into a drink that could have fit on its pages. He did it himself with the Brandy Alexander. The basic trick is to increase the liquor components in the cocktail until they becomes the dominant flavour. If you were to do this with the Negroni, you'd get something like:
Negroni (Spirit forward style)
- 4 parts gin
- 1 part Campari
- 1 part sweet, red vermouth
It's debatable whether this can still be called a Negroni. Part of the Negroni's charm is its simplicity - equal parts of everything in a glass over ice. I guess it's also debatable whether this can still be called an "Embury style" drink; I suspect he would have increased the gin even more, but that leads to a rather unpleasantly dry cocktail (I mean, have you seen his recipe for a sidecar? It's insane).
The above variation is more complicated to make and the gin, as expected, is the dominant flavour. Still though, it's a pretty good drink, especially if you like gin more than you like Campari.
Personally, I think the "Embury" treatment works better on the Boulevardier:
Boulevardier (Spirit forward style)
- 4 parts Rye or Bourbon
- 1 part Campari
- 1 part sweet vermouth
Again, is this really a Boulevardier? I don't know but it's a good drink nonetheless. It's tastes a bit like a Manhattan with a bitter kick. Generally speaking, whiskey cocktails work well in their spirit forward variations, though you need a decent whiskey for this to work. Or maybe I just like whiskey.
In any case, there's quite a lot of room for experimentation here. Have fun!