As little as 20 years ago, ordering a negroni constituted a secret handshake with a bartender. You were in the know; you knew how to drink and what to drink, such was its unfamiliarity in Britain. Today the Italian cocktail is everywhere and enjoyed by all.
Many will know its origin story by now. How, in 1919, Count Camillo Negroni asked bartender Fosco Scarselli at the Florentine haunt Caffè Giacosa (then Casoni) to make his usual Americano (Campari, vermouth and a little soda over ice) a little stronger. And so the gin replaced the soda and a timeless classic was born. Well, perhaps — the origin story is shaky. There are others who attribute the cocktail to General Pascal Olivier de Negroni de Cardi, Comte de Negroni. And then there are those who have no idea where the name really comes from but do know both men were around long before any recipes recorded the drink in its present form, which didn’t happen until the 1950s.
