Drink of the Week: The Classic Negroni

Photo: John Valls

September 22, 2023

With thousands of bars worldwide participating in Negroni Week, and roughly a gazillion Negronis (and Negroni relatives) served as part the celebrations, our choice of the Negroni for this week’s Drink of the Week should be pretty obvious. Let’s be clear: What we’re talking about here isn’t A Negroni. It’s THE Negroni, a cocktail so iconic (yet so simple!) that it functions as a key supporting structure for the entire cocktail canon. With its three-ingredient formula, it fits right in with the Manhattan, the Martini, the Old Fashioned, and the Daiquiri, the other mainstays of cocktail civilization.

But the Negroni brings something essential to the table that distinguishes it from these other classics. Before the Negroni, bitterness was considered an accent. Bitter was a flavor that was judiciously dripped into an Old Fashioned, or that rode along with sweetness in the Manhattan’s dose of vermouth.

The Negroni recipe bumped up bitterness to make it an essential co-star. No longer playing a supporting role, bitterness was now spending more or less equal time in the spotlight. In so doing, the Negroni changed the way we think about cocktails, boosting the utility and relevance of this flavor behind the bar.

The Negroni has morphed in many directions, especially since Negroni Week’s 2013 debut. I’m always happy to have a Boulevardier or a Kingston Negroni in front of me. But today, I’m celebrating cocktail hour in the company of the drink at the heart of it all.

Classic Negroni Recipe

This is the old-school, equal-parts version. This is how I like ‘em, and how I mix Negronis at home. But maybe you prefer the more contemporary take, stepping up the gin to 1 ½ oz.? Or maybe tweaking the proportions of vermouth and/or Campari to your taste? In that case, as the saying goes, you do you.

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth

Tools: barspoon, strainer
Glass: rocks
Garnish: orange slice or orange twist

Stir all of the ingredients with ice, then strain into a glass filled with fresh ice (or a single large ice cube). Add an orange wheel or twist as a garnish, and sip while reading about this year’s Negroni Week giving partner: Slow Food.

Paul Clarke

Paul Clarke is Imbibe's Executive Editor and the author of The Cocktail Chronicles: Navigating the Cocktail Renaissance With Jigger, Shaker & Glass, released in July of 2015. He believes in the importance of a diverse liquid diet.