Episode 106: Negroni Week 2024 With Livio Lauro

It’s Negroni Week! In celebration of this iconic cocktail, thousands of bars around the world are mixing classic Negronis and variations all week in support of the work of Slow Food. For this episode, we talk with Livio Lauro, an Italian-born bartender now working as the director of mixology and product education for Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, about his early embrace of the Negroni and how this cocktail continues to be a fascination and inspiration for bartenders worldwide.

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Paul Clarke 

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe’s editor in chief. 

And right now, on the day when this episode first goes live, we’re fresh into the latest round of Negroni Week. Every year since 2013, we’ve celebrated what’s become a global event, with thousands of participating bars mixing up countless rounds of Negronis and Negroni relatives, all in support of a good cause. Since that inaugural year, Negroni Week has raised more than $5 million for charitable organizations, and we’re not slowing down now. 

As in past years, it’s super easy to find out more. All you need to do is head online to negroniweek.com to find a participating bar near you, so you can go sip a Negroni and show your support, and so you can learn more about our giving partner, Slow Food, a global movement of local communities and activists in more than 160 countries seeking to change the world through food and beverage. 

For this Negroni Week episode, we’re talking to one of the early advocates for the cocktail who helped lead the way for the Negroni resurgence in America. Livio Lauro is an Italian-born bartender, now living in Las Vegas, where he’s the director of mixology and product education for Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, and the author of Liquid Legacy, which came out earlier this year. We asked Livio to talk us through his own education on the Negroni and to fill us in on why this cocktail continues to be such a versatile platform and a flavorful inspiration for bartenders and drinkers today. 

[music]

Paul Clarke 

Livio, welcome to Radio Imbibe.

Livio Lauro 

Hello, Paul. And hello, everybody. 

Paul Clarke 

Hey, it’s great to have you on the podcast and I’m so happy to have you on for several reasons. For one reason, at the time that listeners will be hearing this, it will be Negroni Week 2024. So, happy Negroni Week. 

Livio Lauro 

Happy Negroni Week. 

Paul Clarke

Happy Negroni Week. And, you know, we first met each other more than a decade ago when we were talking about the Negroni during a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail. And at that time, I can’t recall exactly the year that that was offhand, but I think Negroni Week may not have even started yet. I think the first year for Negroni Week was 2013. And now, of course, it’s a global event with thousands of bars participating every year.

But the fact that we were talking about the Negroni so many years ago and dedicating a good chunk of time to sharing that conversation with a big audience there in New Orleans underscores, I think, the beauty of this individual cocktail and the kind of influence it has on the bar world. And those are the topics I’d like to pursue today a little bit more so for you. When did you first become enamored with the Negroni? When did it first capture your attention? 

Livio Lauro 

It was 1992, Paul. I was not a bartender yet. I was a bar back at a lounge on the island of Ischia, which is in the Mediterranean, a neighbor island of Capri. And my bartender was making them, and he was meticulous about how he made them. He was always very meticulous. But he always told me that even more than the Martini, when he made a Negroni, he kind of suited up for the occasion and made sure that the pinkie was out, too, because he knew he was making something that was greater than the parts that compiled the cocktail itself, or composed it. And at that time I was younger, I wasn’t really drinking bitter things quite yet.

Actually, I take that back. I was drinking bitter things, but not alcoholic. So Campari Soda or Cocktail San Pellegrino or Crodinos, these are bitter sodas that are given to kids, which is an interesting thing, right?

In Italy, we start drinking bitter but never highly alcoholic, like a Negroni. And I just I think that was the moment that made me fall in love with this cocktail, because that was like the cocktail lore, the moment where I said, Oh, my God, yes. Cocktails are culture. They’re part of society. And I’m living through this moment right now in front of a Negroni. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. Right. And you mentioned how the bartender kind of get suited up for it. We take it very seriously. What about everybody else? Like, how did how did the drinkers how did the guests perceive the Negroni? How much was it a part of that whole kind of culture and attitude? 

Livio Lauro 

So where I worked in the lounge, everybody, it was a swankier style of lounge. And so the consumer there drink the Negroni as almost a sense of “I’ve achieved. I’ve arrived in life, I’m a Negroni drinker and I’m here.” And you know, the ingredients in this cocktail are 50, 60, 70, 80, God knows how many ingredients are in the vermouth, the Campari and the gin. And so it was taken very serious. But then when I moved on, still for the same company, but moved on to actually bartending in more casual events where there were younger people. That’s where I noticed how versatile this cocktail was, because I had learned about it as if it were this, “I have achieved in life” style the type of drink.

But as I started bartending at younger aperitivo events where there was thumping music and just younger crowds, I was just noticing how it was kind of a refreshing, easygoing, lovely, bright drink that the young people were drinking too. And I remember thinking, Wow, this must be a really versatile cocktail because I had not seen many drinks achieve that at that time. Right? This was a time where, I don’t know, the Mojito was at least it was my first experience with Mojitos. But Mojitos were very young and jovial and party thumping. Or the Martini. The Martini was very serious, but the Negroni was able to do both of those things. And it was really fascinating. 

Paul Clarke 

That is really interesting to hear it, because typically you’ll see like different drinks in different settings or you talk about the kind of lounge kind of environment where you might expect a, you know, encounter like the Scotch drinker or the serious Martini drinker or something like that. You know, that’s very you know, it’s a very kind of austere aspect to it, a very kind of engaged aspect. But then the scene also appearing in this kind of, you know, much more kind of club like environment with young people and much more freewheeling. You don’t see a lot of drinks that can kind of like cross that boundary. Now, when you were in the United States and working in the industry here, how was that different from what you saw? And I mean, what was the state of the level of Negroni awareness back then? 

Livio Lauro 

Well, Paul, I think your seminar from Tales of the Cocktail was astonishing in explaining that at its best. Right. Obviously, you had done your homework. You had picked the few people that had been talking about Negronis before that event, and that was Jacques Bezuidenhout and myself and Tony Abou-Ganim of course, Francesco [Lafranconi] and Dale [DeGroff] was talking about Negronis as well. When I made it to America, the drink simply was not known and I made it here. I was here in 1999 for about six months, and I went back home, did my last summer gig in Ischia, and then came back in 2000. And at that time, really, the Negroni was not a popular beverage.

I remember when I would go to bars with my colleagues from work. After work, we would just go to the bar and I would order a Negroni, and most of the times explain to the bartender how to make it. When my colleagues would see me with this red drink, they would look at it and think I was drinking like a fruity. They would make fun of me saying, Can’t you drink something a little bit more stiff and firm? That’s how. 

Paul Clarke 

Or it’s a Cosmo or something. 

Livio Lauro 

Right. That is, they thought it was a Cosmo on the rocks. Right. Which again, nothing wrong with that, by the way. But they were they were making fun of me that way. And these were all people in the industry. These were people in the industry that I had to explain. Although the Negroni, it’s gin, Campari, sweet vermouth, all of the stories behind it.

But when I made it to America, nobody knew what it was. And I do know that at that time, most of the people were seeing the Negroni, it was shaken, up. Right. Which kind of makes the drink a little more watery, right? You can’t taste much of it. It creates those air pockets. And so now that lovely flavor of the Campari is is minimized. But it was a long way for America to jump on it. And then, quite frankly, if you ask me, really improve it like America usually does. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. Right. Now, you know, it’s interesting. You mentioned a couple of things there. First off, when you were younger, drinking these bitter sodas in Italy. And, you know, granted, that’s not a thing that you typically see a lot in the United States. So it was this kind of, you know, almost an on-ramp flavor wise to that kind of more challenging flavors. And then, like you said, also, Campari is not a beginner’s drink. The Negroni is not a beginner’s cocktail.

When you look back at the 1970s, some of the magazine advertisements that Campari used to run in the United States, they’d have a line like nine out of 10,000 people prefer the taste of Campari. And it was, you know, tongue in cheek. It was having fun with that kind of challenging character, the intensity of it, the bittersweet character. When you first started introducing American drinkers or Negroni novices to this cocktail, how did you help ease the way? I mean, like you mentioned some of it now just kind of mentioning that this is actually a thing in Italy, but how did you kind of walk them step by step into understanding and then appreciating the Negroni? 

Livio Lauro 

Yeah I always used the three sipper. I always said, I’m going to make you a Negroni or we’re going to order a Negroni, depending on the scenario. And I would always say the first sip, You’re going to hate me. The second sip, you’re still going to hate me. The third sip, you’re going to fall in love with me. And it just actually works. It’s one of the things I would bet on the most in life, right? It’s like, just give this three sips, and on the third sip you’re going to love it.

Another example was something I did when I was at work working for Southern Wine and Spirits at the time, now Southern Glazer’s, was there was an email out and we were talking about Campari and I just replied to the whole group and I said, The Negroni is not just a drink, it’s a way of life. And so is Campari. And I’ll never forget one of my bosses just took that signature line, that that that phrase and forwarded it to the folks at Campari. They said, This is one of our employees, Livio, has to say about your product. That’s what made me the Campari champion and the Negroni Week champion. 

Paul Clarke 

To your point, like, nobody likes espresso the first time they have espresso. Nobody likes, you know, shiitake mushrooms the first time they have shiitake mushrooms. These are all acquired tastes, all acquired flavors. But once you get a taste for them, then you realize there’s great beauty to be found here. And I think the Negroni is very much the same kind of way.

I was talking earlier this week to a mutual acquaintance and friend of ours, Erick Castro, for his Bartender at Large podcast, and we were talking about taking the walk down memory lane back to like 2005 or so when both of us started appraising the Negroni and as cocktail professionals, neither of us liked it. And part of it is the reason he said, You know, when you get a Negroni in the bar at the time, it’ll typically be shaken. So you’re not really kind of getting the full kind of character of it.

Erick mentioned that how a lot of times when we have a Negroni, like in those early days of the Cocktail Renaissance, it would typically be stirred and served up with like a lemon twist, which again, you know, if that’s your way of drinking the Negroni and you like it that way, you then definitely have it that way. But it may not be the best way to fully appreciate the full kind of character. At what point in there did you realize that the technique of putting the drink together plays such a role that it’s not just gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, but there’s the whole practice of putting this together and putting it in a glass in front of somebody that that really plays such a significant role in enjoying it?

Livio Lauro 

Yeah, that’s a good question, Paul. That was a day one thing for me. Day one, I. I realized based off the story of my head bartender kind of saying, Hey, I suit up for this one. That it was a form of art. I’ve opened my mind a lot because when I first came to America, I was a little more vocal about your stirring the drink. It doesn’t really need to be stirred. It’s three ingredients that mix well together. Just put the ice in the glass, put the three ingredients in the glass, mix the drink, take the orange slice in between the rim of the glass and the ice cubes like they do in Florence. You’re overcomplicating it. Right. And that was always my spiel and to me, that still today makes the best Negroni.

And I’ll just add a little bit to that with good one and whatever a quarter-inch ice cubes, not the big cube, not the small ice that melts that you find in, you know, small bars or local bars. To me, that is still the quintessential Negroni.

There was a time where to me that was the only way you made it. It’s like, listen, if you go to Florence, where the cocktail supposedly was invented, you will walk into any bar and that’s how they all make it. There’s a reason. And throughout the years I’ve opened my mind a little bit more to, okay, put it in a beaker, stir it, add whatever are 25, 30 percent more water to that, and now pour that over ice and add more water to it to make it simple.

But whether you beaker it and you pour it over ice or whether you just build it directly in the glass and just let it go, and there’s a cultural thing about that which we can talk about as well. Why in Italy you specifically do it that way? I learned that that technique is so important to the end drinker, right? And when you’re stirring it and then pouring it over fresh ice, you really are softening up that Campari, vermouth, that punch. When you’re making it directly over ice, you’re getting a little more of that, those aromatics. Right. Less dilution. From the get go, I guess. 

Paul Clarke 

Right? Absolutely. And I really like the point you made where the Negroni is something that really it’s best if you don’t overthink it. You just go with the simple approach to it. You know, kind of get your Goldilocks ice that’s just not too big, not too small, just right, you know, get your proportions right, but really don’t overthink it. Don’t overprepare it. Then really, you know, you’re living up to the full character of that cocktail.

If you want to experiment with it, if you want to play with it, then that’s totally fine. And that’s my next question I want to get into, because over the past decade or so as Negroni Week has taken off and their journey has become much more ubiquitous in American bars and global bars and in cocktail culture, we’ve also seen a fresh appreciation for experimenting with the Negroni or rediscovering its relatives.

You know, the Boulevardier had its own take-off moment, you know, with whiskey in place of the gin and the Old Pal to some degree. Then you have newer things like the Kingston Negroni, like, you know Joaquín Simó bringing in Jamaican rum into the equation or a mezcal Negroni. What is it about the Negroni, do you think that offers bartenders such a platform for experimentation while still working within that kind of recognizable formula?

Livio Lauro

I think we peel back the onion a little bit and we talk about the Americano. It was the Americano that had that magic combination of versatility, right. And just about anything goes with it. The combination of bitters and vermouth, the Campari and vermouth and that splash of seltz, which were the ingredients in the Americano. They kick started all of this, right? And so to me, that was where historically we started learning that you can put this combination with just about everything. That’s what allegedly Count Camillo Negroni did, right, where he said, I’ll take it a little bit stronger.

By the way, back in my days in the nineties when I was making Negronis, the older bartenders would frown upon us as if we were, you know, de naturalizing it because we would not add the soda. For the generation before, the Negroni was a Americano plus gin. So it was gin, Campari, sweet vermouth, soda or seltzer. More important than soda because seltzer is highly carbonated water, soda has sodium bicarbonate and all those other things. And so they would look at us punk kids and say, What are you doing? You have to add this. But so that combination has always been amazing.

I guess just philosophically for me, I love how it has spawned off to so many other drinks. And believe me, each and every one of them truly is delicious because Campari and vermouth stand up very well to Jamaican rum. They stand up, amazingly to mezcal. And few ingredients actually do that well. The thing is this to me, the Negroni was born because of the addition of gin. So when you make a variation of it, just wave a bottle of gin on top of it to keep it a Negroni, right. 

Paul Clarke 

Yeah. You keep it within that spirit. Yeah. And, you know, all things come and go. Flavors and ingredients and spirits become super popular for a few years and everyone moves on to the next thing. It’s just how human beings operate. But even as that happens, some things endure as classics, they never fully fade away. They’re always kind of there, maybe in the background, and they hang around until their popularity soars again years or even generations later. What is it about the Negroni, do you think, that prepares it to endure these kinds of shifts of taste and popularity so that it can still be right there when the drinkers of the world come back to it again? 

Livio Lauro 

Yeah, I mean, I’m speculating here, Paul, but this is what I think I once heard. I’m not a Bloody Mary drinker. I once heard that the reason why a Bloody Mary is a great morning drink, hangover drink is because in the morning, the morning after, your body is itching for something, and because the Bloody Mary has that sweetness from the tomato juice and the tart and the spice and the acidity, if you’re squeezing a lemon juice in it because it has all those things going on, it’s a great morning-after drink, because no matter what you’re craving, you will find it in that drink.

The Negroni with this incredible combination of bitters and fruitiness candied orange, sometimes marzipan or almond flavor as your palate evolves. You graduated out of what you like to the Negroni for, and you started appreciating new flavors in the Negroni. And again, that’s just speculation, but it just has so much going on that you are going to find something you love about it, which makes it appropriate any time during your drinking journey of life. 

Paul Clarke 

We’re heading toward the exit here. Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share on the Negroni or Negroni Week? 

Livio Lauro 

Negroni Week is an incredible global celebration of what I believe is the most incredible cocktail ever invented. And so I always encourage people to take a sip of history, but also take advantage of this week to order the cocktail, drink it and enjoy it, savor it, understand all the culture behind it. You know, in Italy, we have the aperitivo hour, which is something that happens between six and 8 p.m. where people socialize. And I highly encourage people to drink a Negroni and to drink it with their friends and talk about life. 

Paul Clarke 

And for folks listening in, this episode is coming out right in the middle of Negroni Week. You can head to negroniweek.com and find participating bars near you, where you can go sip on a Negroni as Livio suggests, and have the knowledge that that bar is also making a contribution to our charitable partner this year. Livio, it’s so good to talk to you again. Thanks so much for being a part of this. And I can’t wait to run into you again in person. 

Livio Lauro 

Me, too, Paul. It was great to reconnect and cheers. And thanks for having me on. 

[music]

Paul Clarke 

You can find Livio on Instagram @liviolauro and one more time head to negroniweek.com to find out more about this global celebration and to find a participating bar near you. We’ve got links for you in this episode’s notes.

And that’s it for this episode. Be sure to subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all our future episodes. We’ve got plenty of recipes and stories for you online at imbibemagazine.com. Keep up with us on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and threads for all your social media needs. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then here’s your opportunity. Just follow the link in this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.