This negroni week Vikram Achanta takes the readers through the best negronis that he has tasted all across the world, during his travels.
Visitors to Ho Chi Minh City can testify to the frenzy that is unleased on the roads come rush hour, with nearly every two-wheeler ever made bearing down on you as you try and cross the road. It’s a relief to be able to finally be walking up the two flights to Drinking and Healing, a bar whose name will always be etched in my memory. And even more so, when I find that the exposed brick walls within the bar, have a Chaplin movie playing on them. A glow sign near the bar says, No Negroni without Campari, and as the Eurythmics song goes, ‘Who am I to disagree’. I order a pitch perfect barrel aged Negroni, and listen to a band talking about the pleasures of Route 66, as Charlie does his thing on the wall. All evenings should be like this.
A Negroni is that most interesting of creations, one that has overshadowed its progenitor, if not its creator who lives on through its name. Supposedly born when Count Camille Negroni wanted to stiffen up his Americano, and the bartender — to whom gin brands will always be grateful — swapped out the soda water in it for gin. It’s also very much an acquired taste, one that takes a while to get used to, a Bumble date that fires on the third try. After all, we haven’t all grown up in Italy, where you even get a type of bitter honey called Corbezzolo.
Varun Sharma, the beverage custodian at Gurgaon’s Comorin has the perfect riposte for this: A tweak to seduce guests into the Negroni. For this, he uses a technique very much in vogue in the cocktail world called fat washing, a smart way to add some extra flavour to your drink, typically savoury. Add a liquid to a spirit and let it sit at room temperature for a while. Then keep it in your freezer till the fat solidifies and can be skimmed off, leaving behind the underlying flavour of the original ingredient you added to the spirit. In this case, he uses coconut oil to fat wash the Campari, doing two things at once: Softening the bite of the Campari and giving the Indian palate a more familiar flavour.
A Negroni is made classically with equal serves (30 ml) each of gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth. And these three spirits also give inventive bartenders the world over a canvas to play on. Take Delhi’s PDA, for instance. It takes advantage of its co-location with Ritu Dalmia’s justly famous Diva. White truffles from Italy are imported yearly, and Vikas, who earlier ran the bar at PDA, used a technique called sous vide to infuse gin with a flavour of fresh truffles. It’s a delicious cocktail — reborn now at PCO, their sister outlet, where Vikas has now moved — as the Truffle Trip. To ensure that the truffle infusion isn’t overshadowed by the Campari or vermouth, he uses a 40 ml pour of the gin, with 30ml each of the other two. Next on the menu for him is a Porcini Negroni, for which he infuses the vermouth with saffron and raisin. Can’t wait to taste it!
This week, of course, is celebrated the world over as Negroni Week, launched in 2013 by Imbibe Magazine in collaboration with Campari. Since then, it has grown from being celebrated to thousands of bars around the world, and raised over $3 million for charitable organizations. It’s on in India too, and I’m sure one of your favourite bars is ringing it in as well.
For me though, it’s a drink I celebrate not just in that one week, but around the year, and one which I actively look out for wherever I’m travelling to get a flavour of Negronis the world over, whether it’s sipping on a Marrakech Negroni (with cardamom and citrus infused vermouth), on the rooftop of El Fenn in Marrakesh this May or paying homage earlier that month to New York’s Caffé Dante, a worthy pilgrimage site for the Aperitivo.
Dante dates back to 1915, and is a NYC landmark, but its cocktail renaissance took place seven years ago, when it was taken over by three Aussies, who successfully took it to #1 in the World’s 50 Best Bars rankings in 2019. I start with a Negroni Bianco, that swaps out the Campari for multiple vermouths, and is served with strands of flowers floating in my glass. I follow that up quicky with a Mezcalito that replaces the gin for hibiscus infused Mezcal. Both delicious.
And while on Mezcal, I can’t but mention quite possibly the best Negroni I’ve ever tasted — and that too in the unlikely environs of Hong Kong’s Coa — a bar dedicated to agave, and one which has clocked #1 in Asia in the last two years rankings of Asia’s 50 Best Bars. Jay Khan, the founder swaps the gin for Mezcal, adds a touch of coffee, and serves it up with a square of chocolate on the top, to munch while you sip. For those who can’t visit, find someone who’s visiting HK, and can bring away a bottled version of it.
And that’s also the beauty of the Negroni. It is a cocktail that can be pre-batched and chilled, and served up on demand. In 2018, I pop into the tiny and beautiful Bar Termini in London, who serve up five versions of their House Negroni (GBP 7.5 each), all of them prepared and ready in bottles in a fridge. Quickly served, I drink two rapidly.
At home, it’s easy to make even for a beginner. Just ensure you have a nice glass, ideally just the right size for a chilled serve. On a visit to Singapore’s IBHQ, owned by Kamil Foltan, I fell in love with his Negroni glass, all the way from Japan — and Kamil unbends enough to sell me four of them — that lie in my glass cabinet now, neatly stacked and waiting for a pour.
The versatility of the Negroni is that it lends itself not just to infusions/experiments with its triumvirate of spirits, but in the easy substitution of gin, with a range of spirits, add rum, and you have a Kingston Negroni; pop some bubbly, and you have a Sbagliato; a fancy bourbon instead, and you get the Boulevardier, with Lopsang at Gurgaon’s Cocktails and Dreams making a lovely barrel aged Boulevardier.
What also speaks volumes for the growing popularity of the drink in India is that critical piece of real estate it occupies, the Instagram handle of some of India’s top bartenders, from Bangalore’s Arati Mestry at Seven Rivers Brewing (the negroni moron) to Delhi’s Rohan Matmary at Sidecar (thebitterboss) to Goa’s Pankaj Balachandran at Bar Tesouro (isaynegroni), these are just a few examples.
And finally, for those of us who can’t do without our dessert, I had a chance not to just have my Negroni, but eat it too. At the Vault Biennale in Mumbai in 2019, Sucre de Terres, Mumbai-based maker of artisanal ice-creams, reimagined as an ice cream.
Freshly squeezed Malta orange and Campari formed the base of the sorbet. This was infused with Mancino Rosso, a small-batch Italian vermouth. Each scoop was sprayed with Ableforth’s Bathtub Gin as it was served. All served to continue with the Italian theme in and on an activated charcoal and parmesan cone. I dare you to not like it.
Vikram Achanta is founder and CEO of Tulleeho, a drinks training and consulting firm, and a co-founder of www.tulleeho.com, a drinks website. He is also co-founder of 30 Best Bars India, India’s first bar awards and ranking platform. His Instagram handle is @rumdoodle69.