Like most beautiful, important things, the Negroni didn’t appear out of nowhere. The beloved bittersweet cocktail made of sweet vermouth, Campari and gin is indebted to the foundational, but lesser-known drink that came half a century before it: The Milano-Torino.
The History of the Milano-Torino
The first known cocktail to use Campari, the two-ingredient drink, also known as Mi-To, is a simple blend of the bitter red liqueur and sweet Vermouth from Turin. Gaspare Campari is believed to have first mixed the drink in Milan in the 1860s. At some point around this time, Campari added soda water to the concoction, creating the Americano. Fast forward to 1919 at Florence’s Caffè Casoni, when another building block was added; gin took the place of soda and the Negroni was born.
The Negroni has only grown in ubiquity since. Modern riffs like the white negroni (bitter gentian liqueur Suze swapped in for Campari and Lillet for the vermouth) and the decades-old but recently TikTok-famous sbagliato (Prosecco for the gin) keep the cocktail a fixture on bar and restaurant menus. And yet the Milano-Torino remains one of those classic cocktails with “if you know, you know” popularity, even though it started it all.
Why the disconnect? Sossio Del Prete, bar manager at Rumore Milano in Italy, says that the addition of gin lent the Negroni “a broader, more assertive flavor profile that has universal appeal.” He adds, “The Milano-Torino, by contrast, is a more subtle, balanced cocktail.”
While subtlety doesn’t always win
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
