It’s 7pm on a Saturday evening in Milan, and a large crowd has gathered outside Bar Basso. Aperitivo hour has only just started, but inside the tables are already taken. From well-heeled locals puffing on HeatSticks to fashion types carrying tiny dogs, everyone is holding the same rust-coloured cocktail.
A negroni sbagliato translates as a “wrong negroni” or a “mistaken” one. Similar to a real negroni (gin, vermouth and Campari), it swaps the gin for sparkling wine. And like an Aperol spritz, when ordering it’s advisable to truncate it – spritz there, sbagliato here – if you want to pass as true Milanese. Behind the bar, five bartenders fill cocktail mixers with ice, then free-pour the liquor into goblets the size of pineapples. They make so many each night, they refer to them as “sba” as shorthand.
