Americano

A cocktail with sweet vermouth, Campari bitters, and club soda.

Recipes

"The New New York Bartender's Guide" (1997)

• 1 1/2 oz Sweet vermouth
• 1 1/2 oz Campari
• Sparkling water

Pour vermouth and Campari into a chilled highball glass over ice cubes. Fill with sparkling water and stir. Garnish with lemon peel.

Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide (1972)

• 3/4 oz Campari
• 3/4 oz Italian vermouth

Stir well in an old fashioned glass filled with ice cubes. Add twist of lemon peel. Variation: Add club soda.

History

The cocktail was first served in the 1860s in creator Gaspare Campari's bar, Caffè Campari, in Milan, Italy. The cocktail was originally known as the "Milano-Torino" because of its ingredients: Campari, the bitter liqueur, is from Milan, and Punt e Mes, the vermouth, is from Turin. In the early 1900s, the drink became very popular with American tourists, and the cocktail became known as the Americano.

According to "Vintage Cocktails" by Susan Waggoner and Robert Markel (1999), Campari was classified as a medicinal product rather than a spirit during Prohibition, and therefore "escaped the lethal ax of the law." If true, this would have made it easily accessible in the 1920s in the United States.