That's a barrel-aged Negroni on the left: Campari, sweet vermouth, gin. On the right, a barrel-aged Vesper: gin, vodka, dry vermouth. Is it worth premixing the drink and "aging" it in a small cask for a few weeks?
The folks at Black Bottle seem to think so. At Bar Cotto, too. Also Liberty and Tavern Law, and at Canon, too, if memory serves. Very trendy. Started by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the bartender at Clyde Common in Portland, it seems.
Now, I like my Negroni as much as the next guy. More, actually. And you'd think, maybe, that barrel-aging would give some additional complexity to the drink. But no. Campari is already a complex, herbal and aromatic bitter. Most vermouths are already plenty sweet and aromatic. Gin, of course, is the most aromatic spirit of all the standard distillates. So what do you gain? A greater marriage of the three disparate ingredients? No, sez I, just a flattening of the drink's liveliness, a rounding of the very edges that make the Negroni so interesting.
If anything, I'm looking for something to give the Negroni back some of its original, distinctive bitterness, which the pre-2000 Campari had. Since then, Campari Group has acquired or launched over 50 brands, including Aperol, Cinzano, Skyy Vodka, Wild Turkey, and Appleton Rum. Gruppo Campari is present in 190 countries around the globe, employes 4,000 people. If you start taking Campari off the shelf and pouring it into barrels, you're not doing the world's economy any favors.
On the other hand, what I really need to do, instead of whining, is buy some grapefruit or orange bitters. Customize my Negroni, I should, to my palate's content.
Leave a comment