Latest / Into The Barchive / Before the Negroni: The Milano-Torino & Americano
Transcript
- ITB: And two. comes alive forgotten drinks will revive ⁓ we thrive sip the tails let them die welcome to the bark hello bark of this and welcome back to into the barkive the podcast where we dive deep into the stories people and cocktails that have shaped the way we drink I am Tim Wright Mixologist ⁓ you're above average curious drinker and a I guess tipsy bartender through this history ⁓ booze. And I'm Dr. Blake Jones, historian, mixologist, and certified specialist of spirits, here to pour out the stories behind what's in your glass. Every famous cocktail has parents. Sometimes those parents have become forgotten because their child has grown up to become the superstar. Today. We're talking about two drinks that almost never get ordered anymore because without them, the Negroni simply would not exist. Yeah, the Milano Torino and the Americano aren't just old Italian cocktails, they're also windows into an important moment in Italian history. These drinks emerged during a period when Italy itself was still defining what it meant to be a unified nation. Cities were growing, cafes were flourishing, railroads connected regions that had once been separate kingdoms, and a shared drinking culture was beginning to take shape. We'll make both of these cocktails today, but we're going to spend some time talking about the ingredients that made it possible, particularly Vermouth and Campore. Yeah. And why Italy became such a fertile ground for the Afratif culture. Yeah, but because before the Negroni became one of the world's greatest cocktails, Italians first had to fall in love with drinking before dinner. So grab your bottle of verbooth, open that compare, and let's get into the barcide. The Milano Torino. Very simple in the name because very simple in the ingredients. You have your Milano and your Torino. An equal part cocktail, no fuss, no muss. Let's build in the glass. As in equals parts, depending on your vessel, one one and a half ounces of whatever you need. I'm gonna put one ounce of a compari. And then since I did one, we're going one. And what better than Antica Torino? We're gonna go one ounce. Of Antica sweet vermouth. After you have the one and one or equal parts, grab yourself a ice, a nice clear cube if possible. Slider into your glass. And just give it a gentle stir. There. No garnishes needed. Again. Milano Torino. Cheers. For our second cocktail, we're going to take the Milano Torino base and amp it up a little. So I've got a chilled highball glass here. I'm gonna get one ounce of my Milano component, the Kimpuri. And add to the glass. Then I'll get one ounce of my Torino component, the sweet vermouth, the Carpano Antica formula. And add that to the glass. At this point, I'm gonna fill the glass with ice. So so far, essentially all we have is the Milano Torino. Essentially, the only difference right now is it's in a tall glass instead of a short glass, and it's got instead of one big rock, multiple ice cubes. This is what makes the Americano different club soda. So we're going to add club soda and try to get it off the ice, just like so, and then a simple garnish. An orange moon and put it in there and you have your Americano Cheers. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context. Italy before the Negroni. Alright. I'm gonna put on my historian cap here. Okay, I'm buckling up. Alright. So when most people think of Italy, they think of ancient Rome or the Renaissance, or maybe like today the vineyards of Tuscany. But our story really begins in the 19th century. For centuries Italy wasn't a single country at all. It was a patchwork of kingdoms and duchies and republics and territories controlled by various European powers. Okay, you use the word there, duchies, but continued. Like dukes and duchesses. Yeah. So you had Venice, Naples, Florence, the kingdom of Sardinia, each one of them had their own governments, their own customs, and even their own culinary traditions. Okay. So Italy would not become politically unified until eighteen sixty-one during the movement known as the Resorgimento. And of course I don't speak Italian, so I probably butchered that. Sounds good to me. But even after unification, there were significant regional differences. The Italy of the late nineteenth century was still discovering what a national identity looked like. Essentially, was it mean to be Italian? Alright, instead of like Sardinian or Venetian or whatever. So what was the definition then? Where do they glue to? So they're going to the cafes. And that's something we often overlook today because, like coffee shops, our cafes are everywhere. But 19th century cafes weren't just a place to grab a quick espresso on your way to work. They were gathering places. They were offices before offices. Artists met here, journalists met there, businessmen negotiated there, students debated philosophy there. Kind of the predecessor to the bar, so after hours drinking, the before hours drink. Okay. And if you wanted to exchange ideas, you went to a cafe. And I guess most importantly to our story, cafes weren't just serving coffee. Okay, makes sense now, yeah. So many had become showcases for regional wines, liqueurs, bitters, and aromatized wines, and owners experimented with serving these regional products in new ways, often combining them into very simple mixed drinks that highlighted those local ingredients. So comes northern Italy's most famous. Yeah, so northern Italy, especially the regions of Turin and Milan. Become the center of this innovation, and if you travel through northern Italy, you'll quickly discover one of their favorite traditions. The Apertivo. Right? Yeah. So essentially you order that drink before dinner, and then a spread of olives, cheese, cured meats, breads, nuts, or small bites come along aside it. I mean, we both have been to Italy ⁓ several times. It's s that's one of the things that I enjoy the most. It's relaxed. There is some social aspect to it. There's no one's rushing the two. It's a very slow pace. The point isn't like, hey, I'm hit going to the bar after work for a happy hour to slam a few and go home. This is like intentional social relax not to get drunk. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that distinction is important because the word aperativo comes from the Latin aperire, meaning to open. Correct. So the drink was intended to open the appetite before the evening meal. Shout out to Megista Salomon for our Latin back in high school. Yes. And there's a physiological claim behind this idea that bitterness stimulates saliva production and digestive activity. But again, it's just as important in terms of its social function. As I mentioned before, it's the opposite of American Happy Hour. Like it's truly the antithesis antithesis of it. Like it serves a different purpose. Yeah, happy hour is let's get some terms, let's heavily discount drinks, let's get everyone through the door as quickly as possible, serve them their fried mozzarella sticks and potato skins and move them on. But in Italy, epicimbo became part of the rhythm of like just every day. Like you didn't go because it was after work, you didn't have something to do for the next few hours. It was every day you you did this because it was the social hour. Yeah. And the drink itself was important, but the conversation mattered just as much. And those conversations created demand for drinks that were flavorful, refreshing, and relatively low in alcohol. Yeah, I mean the more that you drink if you're drinking high alcohol, the less the conversation becomes probably pragmatic and more just comical. Yeah, and you wanted something you didn't want anything that would end your evening before dinner even started. It was to open the appetite, not shut it down. Okay, so then it leads us into the story of what vermouth is then, I guess. Mm-hmm. Right. And so nowadays we often treat Vermouth as like a supporting actor. Most people do. Yeah. So it's and earlier we had an episode on Vermouth and low ABV drinking and just kind of a quick like recap. Most people that's the thing they keep at the back of their refrigerator for their Manhattans or martinis, or even worse, they put it on their bar carts or in their liquor cabinets unrefrigerated. Don't do that. Go back to that episode. But in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Vermouth was the star of the show. People drink it by itself. ⁓ and modern Vermouth traces its origins back to Turin, the capital of the Piedmont region of north northwestern Italy. They were known for their excellent wines, but in the late eighteenth century, a young Italian merchant named Antonio Bendetto Carpano changed everything. Campano, as in Carpano? The very same. Okay. So according to tradition, in 1786, Carpano created a fortified wine flavored with a carefully balanced mixture of herbs, spices, citrus peels, and botanicals. Sweetened it, fortified it with spirit, and served it from his shop near the royal palace in Turin. Okay. So the legend has it though. It became an immediate sensation. Members of the royal court embraced it, aristocrats requested requested it, and Carpano's shop stayed open around the clock to keep up with demand. To make production that much. Okay. They were drinking some vermouth. A lot of vermouth. Now, again, one of those Whether or not every detail of that legend is accurate, there's no question that Carpano helped establish the style of aromatized wine we now recognize as modern vermouth. Now let's pause here for a moment and talk about vermouth isn't just herbs tossed into wine, right? That's correct. What is it? So you begin with a wine base, traditionally white wine, even for sweet. Vermouth, okay. ⁓ that wine is fortified with a neutral spirit to increase the stability. So while you self-refrigerate your vermouth, it's gonna last longer than table wine, and it ups the alcohol content. Correct. Then the wine is infused with a lot of botanicals, and every producer has their own like house recipe. ⁓ but common ingredients include. Wormwood, gentian, chamomile, coriander, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, vanilla, and other alpine herbs. And it goes back to the fact that the other thing that brings the color, since it has been clear to begin with, adding a neutral spirit, which is typically clear as well, the color typically comes from the sweetener. Yeah. Which is usually a caramelized sugar. Yeah, so using that spirit caramel to give sweet vermouth its color. And again, if you've ever only thought of sweet vermouth as the red stuff that goes into Manhattan, it's worth tasting one on its own. Very much so. ⁓ a lot of the European countries, ⁓ when we would do wine tours, especially mom and pop shops, where they might not be able to sell it ⁓ at a local market or something, but they were all producing their own type of ⁓ a vermouth. Like when we would go to say Spain or Portugal, we asked around and hey, do you have any of your own vermouth? And they were happy to to share and to show about it, but it's not something that is frequently sold as often as those wine producers were selling their own wine, right? So using that base spirit that they had as wine or base product of wine and then fortifying it gives them a little extra something to have at the house using their own products. Absolutely and And back in the 19th century, that was even more widespread. Vermouth wasn't just a supporting ingredient, it was the destination. You know, like people visited Turin specifically to drink vermouth in cafes, much in the same way that wine lovers visit Napa or bourbon lovers make pilgrimages to Kentucky today. People went to Turin to drink Vermouth. We've done this story of the Vermouth. Let's do the story of Kampare then. Okay. So let's go 90 miles to the east. Okay. And another city was becoming famous for a very different bottle, one that embraced bitterness instead of sweetness. So Kimpare is one of those bottles that really has a personality all its own. ⁓ people have very strong opinions about it. Yeah, you either hate it or like it for the most part. Yeah, and it's fascinating because it occupies a specific place in the world of spirits. It's technically an Italian bitter liqueur, but it that doesn't capture all what makes it unique. Then what makes it unique? So it's bitter, it's sweet, it's herbal, it's citrusy. It is incredibly aromatic. Yeah, once you've put it in your cocktail, you know that it's there. Yeah, and it's one of the defining flavors of Italian cocktail culture. And really, the story of Campuri begins with Gaspare Campari. Okay. He was born in the early 19th century and eventually opened one of those cafes in Milan in the 1860s. And this is just after Italy had become a unified country. Milan was becoming a center of commerce, fashion, industry, and art. The city's modernizing very rapidly. And Gaspari Campuri understood something important. Which was people wanted new experiences. It wasn't just about making drinks, it was about creating an atmosphere. And his establishment, the Cafe Campuri became a meeting. Place for the social and political elites of Milan. Okay. So the exact same cafe culture we discussed earlier. Yeah. And one of Gaspari's creations became one of Italy's most recognizable products. Which was Campari, right? Okay, makes sense now, yes. And although the recipe has always been a closely guarded secret. We know that it's made from a combination of herbs, spices, fruit, and botanicals. Historically, one of those ingredients was believed to be cotchneel. ⁓ the red bug? Yes. So it's a natural dye from an insect that makes campuri this brilliant red. ⁓ just so you our listeners out there know, modern Kimpuri no longer has any insect in it. It uses an artificial red coloring. ⁓ but for more than a century that red color is part of its identity and that color is important. Yeah, it's part of the reason that we recognize it for what it is. Like I'm looking for that big ripe bread, right? Yeah. And it stands out, it looks modern, sophisticated, and different. Then we go to the first cocktail, then, right? Yeah. Let's talk about the Milano Torino. Literally the two cities that both of these ingredients came from, Milan and Turin. Yes. I mean, essentially the name of the cocktail is saying, this is what our city produces, and this is what that your city produces. Let's see what happens when we put them together. Yeah, and for these cocktails, no citrus, no soda. No garnish. Like modern takes on it. Yeah, there may be some ⁓ a half moon or a limit ⁓ orange zest, right? But the traditional version was no garnished at all, no fuss, right? And I mean most historians consider it among the earliest Italian mixed drinks. I mean, it's almost too simple. I mean, typically that's a good sign though. It's really hard to hide if you've got very simple ingredients. Yeah, and and when an ingredient or when a drink survives with only two ingredients for over a century, every ingredient's gotta carry its weight. And I think this cocktail works best because both of those ⁓ the the Milan ⁓ compare and the Torino vermouth, they are both big, bold, and bad. And And other cocktails could actually be the bullies, right? They could overtake, but putting those two together, they're big, they're both big, bold, and bad and beautiful together. Yes. They both accomplishment without one outshining the other. There's a moment where you're like, ⁓ the sweetness from the vermouth is finally popping. And then, ⁓ that bitterness from the campari is now coming in. And it just waves in and out and in and out through each sip. Yeah, and now the exact origins of the Milano Terreno are a little difficult to document, ⁓ which is common of the era. But cocktails like this, as you can imagine, often develop organically in those cafes rather than being created by one bartender who recorded a recipe in a notebook. But we know by the late 1800s, bartenders in northern Italy began competing. Pining this campare from Milan and Vermouth from Turin, and the result becomes one of the earliest Italian apertivo cocktails. Now let's flash forward a little bit to the Americano. Yeah. What do we have there? So while the Milano Torino was a successful drink, someone eventually decides to make it longer, lighter, and more refreshing, and you get the Americano. Okay. So we've made the Americano, and the most ⁓ common explanation of this cocktail is just to lengthen it? Yeah, is just add the soda water to what you have. Now, the the name Americano, there are a couple of theories about the name. The most common explanation is that the drink became popular with American tourists and expatriates visiting Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And these travelers encountered a drink unlike anything they had ever they had back home, right? The United States did not have this whole apertivo culture. So combining the Kimpari and the Vermouth, it's like this is bitter, this is very aromatic, it but it's all lower in alcohol. And so but for the American palate, probably off. pudding, but when you add the soda water, you're making it a little more palatable to the Americana, the Americans, and hence the Americano. So another theory is that it was connected to the world, ⁓ the word American, right? So there was another explanation for this. What is that? Yeah, so in the late nineteenth century, anything associated with America could suggest modernity or energy or novelty. Like the way we use the word modern or contemporary today, like in Italy, to call something like Americano meant like cutting edge, not like stuck in the past. It was more ⁓ present and future looking. Is there another reason? I mean, maybe it's just a marketing term, right? Something to make the drink sound international and fashionable. But the truth is we don't have a definitive answer. But does that matter? No. The stories we tell about drinks often become a part of the drink itself, right? Yeah. And again, the this is a great example of how one ingredient can transform a cocktail. Your Milano Torino is rich and concentrated. Intense. Yes. The Americana, the club soda, opens the drink up. Yeah, and I would like to point that out. It doesn't necessarily make the cocktail weaker. It just It makes the cocktail longer and exchanges some of the textures, right? Adding carbonation and brightness to the cocktail. Doesn't it's not saying, ⁓ this is too boozy. It's making it more approachable for a different palette. Yes. And it's something like if you're sitting at a outside a cafe on a warm afternoon, I'm probably gonna want the Americano. Over just the original Milano Torino. But if it's autumn or a little cooler, maybe I ought. For the Milano Torino. Is it worth taking a moment to talk about the carbonation piece of this? Absolutely. It's always good to dissect the ingredients. Well then tell me more. So during the 19th century, carbonated water was becoming increasingly popular. So advances in technology made artificial carbonation more accessible. You see the rise of soda fountains as gathering places. Not only in Italy, but certainly in the United States. And, you know, new technology changes drinks. This is a story in cocktail history. ⁓ so the invention of ice machines transform cocktails, refrigeration changes everything, and carbonation changes how people think about mixed drinks. I mean, we just mentioned this before carbonation, many cocktails were about concentration and not lengthening, correct? Yeah. So before carbonation was a spirit, a sweetener, aromatic ingredient, something strong and compact. Think old-fashioned Manhattan, things like that. But adding soda water creates a new category of drink. Long drinks. Yeah. Refreshing drinks. Drinks designed for extended enjoyment. Which now brings us back to the Italia ⁓ the Italian apertivo. Yeah, I mean and the Americano was almost perfectly designed for that. Purpose. Flavorful enough to be interesting, light enough to enjoy slowly, and refreshing enough for a social afternoon. Now there's one fascinating ⁓ fascinating cultural association to this, correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Before James Bond became famous for his shaken martinis, he actually drank the Americano. Kur okay. So The Americano actually appears in Ian Fleming's very first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, which was published in nineteen fifty-three. And early in the story, James Bond orders an Americano while in France. And that actually kind of tells us something interesting about Bond as a character. While the average kind of pop culture association of James Bond is martini, shaken, not stirred, right? Fleming's Bond in the books themselves is much more of a drinker with broad tastes. He appreciates wine. He loves champagne. He appreciates cocktails with history. And an Americano is a great choice for Bond because it reflects sophistication without excess. ⁓ the Vesper Martini, we've talked about this one before in ⁓ in an episode. That was more of a shock order, but I agree with you all the other references for Bond and his per partaking of beverages is very intentful and does show some sort of you know sophistication. So at this point in the story we have two important cocktails though. And those two are the Milano Torino, which is just Kampari and Vermouth. Then we have the Americano, which is Kampari Vermouth, with the introduction of our soda now. And I mean, the next question is obvious. What happens if someone replaces the soda? I guess that's our next episode, then. That's the moment where cocktails in cocktail history takes a dramatic turn because replacing the sparkling water with a spirit creates something stronger, more structured, and ultimately more famous. The Negroni. But before we get there, it's important to appreciate these drinks on their own. Because sometimes we only value historical cocktails because of what they become. The Milano Torino matters because it became the foundation. The Americano matters because it represents the transition. Neither drink is simply just a rough draft of the Negroni. They are classics in their own way. That brings us to the conclusion of our episode today. Please like, subscribe, follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or if you're a podcast listener, go ahead and get us on ⁓ Apple or Spotify. Yeah. The journey from the Milano Torino to the Americano to the Negruni is a perfect example of how cocktails evolve. A bartender doesn't always create something completely new. Sometimes they simply ask, what happens if we change one thing? And that one change can create a legend. Next time on Into the Barchive, we'll finally arrive at the cocktail that inspired this entire journey. We'll explore the history, the mist, the controversies surrounding that famous Negroni. So we'll talk about Count Camillo Negroni, the famous substitution of gin for soda water, and why this simple equal parts cocktail became one of the most influential drinks. In modern cocktail history. We'll also make the classic Negruni and explore how bartenders continue to reinterpret it more than a century later. So until next time, keep exploring the past, one drink at a time, as we dive deeper into the bar cop.