The Aperitif Guy

Italy marks 15th August with a holiday. Strictly speaking, it's the feast of the Assumption, an important religious festival for Catholics. However, you'd be hard pushed to find an Italian who uses that name for it. Throughout the country it's known as Ferragosto - the feasts of Augustus. Romans have been enjoying a summer break since the very first emperor provided games and other entertainments at this time of year to maintain his popularity. Nowadays the word applies to both the Assumption day holiday and the fortnight's break that most locals take following it. The Beloved and I love visiting Italy. Being lovers of good food and wine, it’s natural that much of our holidays (and cash) are spent enjoying the local cuisine. Over the years, I’ve started to notice something in the Italian approach to food that you don’t spot at first. Every good cook knows that you’re supposed to take quality ingredients and let them shine, but nobody really tells you what that means. O...

In my last post, we took a lightning-fast sprint through 500 years of gin history, from juniper-flavoured tonic wines to the development of the London Dry style and discovering how well it mixed with medicinal compounds to make them enjoyable to take. ‘London Dry’ denotes a style of gin, not a geographical origin. It’s a clear spirit that has been distilled with roots, berries and seeds to flavour the spirit. A significant proportion of these flavourings must be juniper. Angelica and coriander are the most common other ingredients. No additional sugar is added. ‘Old Tom’ gin, an older style that is enjoying an increase in popularity, as modern drinkers seek out different experiences, is made with fewer, stronger flavourings and sweetened after distillation. During the cocktail boom of the early 20 th century, London Dry gin became the style of gin to use. Its clean taste and dry finish make it ideal for mixing with other flavours. Well-known cocktails like the White ...

Part of me wanted to title this entry “rescuing vermouth.” It does have a bit of an old-fashioned reputation, you see. For so many of us, vermouth means your auntie’s bianco & lemonade, back in the nineteen-eighties, or a glass of Cinzano down the front of Joan Collins’s blouse in the TV ad. It’s such a shame. Great vermouth makes a perfect aperitif drink The slight bitterness of vermouth, as well as the name, originally came from the wormwood plant, but the name now denotes a wine-based drink in which various herbs and other plant extracts are blended with spirit and a quantity of sugar. Traditionally, all vermouth was made with white wine: red vermouth is sweetened with caramel. One or two modern vermouths buck this trend with rosé and red wines, but tradition still holds sway over the majority of products. For me, there are just two ways to use vermouth: on its own or in a cocktail. Vermouth with a mixer just doesn’t do it for me, especially one as sweet as le...

Two Negronis and a few nibbles - simply heaven! Oh how I love a good Negroni! If you’ve never tasted this classic Italian cocktail, you’re in for a treat. A good Negroni represents the perfect combination of strength, sweetness and bitterness and comes in a fabulous deep red, with a chunk of orange on the side. As an aperitif, it has so much going for it. It’s fresh and sharp enough to enjoy al fresco on a hot summer evening, before a casual dinner of roast chicken salad, but it’s also rich enough to serve in the autumn before a more formal affair with multiple courses and a flight of fine wines. Believe me: I’ve done both, and several stages in between! The Negroni is bitter. It’s a drink for adults who have out-grown the need for everything to taste like pop; a proper, grown-up cocktail. The bitterness comes from two directions: first, the Campari, a favourite aperitif drink of mine that is flavoured of gentian root; secondly, the vermouth, deep and herbal. Add...