Few cities have a chicer drinking culture than Milan, and that's for a reason. The home of world-leading opera house La Scala, the city owes its spirited aperitivo tradition to the elegant pre-performance social gatherings that brought its affluent socialites and foremost geniuses, from author Alessandro Manzoni and poet Vincenzo Monti to composer Giuseppe Verdi and conductor Umberto Toscanini, together from the 18th century.
But it was only when Futurism — the era-defining art movement founded by Italian intellectual Filippo Tommaso Marinetti as a celebration of the beauty and machine-aided dynamism of the modern world — struck in 1909 that the real cocktail revolution began. With artist Fortunato Depero's timeless design of the Campari Soda bottle in 1932, the world earned its first single-serve aperitif, and the Italian design capital an iconic beverage that continues to lift people's spirits to this day, featuring as the defining touch in drinks like Spritz and Americano.
