Liquor Cabinet

Issue No. 78 —

Aperol & Campari

Campari and Aper­ol are an acquired taste. I’m sure you know a few peo­ple who won’t touch the stuff and some that swear by it. I fall into the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. I appre­ci­ate their sophis­ti­cat­ed depth and find the bit­ter com­po­nent they bring to cock­tails absolute­ly essen­tial. If it was­n’t for Cam­pari we would­n’t have the time-test­ed Negroni or Americano.

Both Aper­ol and Cam­pari are Ital­ian aper­i­tivos pro­duced by the Cam­pari Group. Cam­pari was cre­at­ed in 1860 by Gas­pare Cam­pari. Aper­ol was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed by Lui­gi and Sil­vio Bar­bi­eri in 1919.  They are both char­ac­ter­ized as bit­ters, an alco­holic bev­er­age that is fla­vored with bit­ter herbal essences. You will often find them in cock­tail recipes tasked with the role of bal­anc­ing the sweet notes of a recipe, much like their close cousin the amaro.

You’ve prob­a­bly noticed con­ver­sa­tions regard­ing the use of Aper­ol vs Cam­pari in cock­tail recipes. That’s because they have a lot of sim­i­lar­i­ties, but I feel they are worlds apart. Aper­ol has a strong orange and man­darin orange fla­vor with a nice bal­ance between a cin­chona and gen­tian bit­ter­ness and an easy sug­ary sweet­ness. Cam­pari kicks in with a bold woody bit­ter­ness, fea­tur­ing more of a rhubarb and berry mid palette and fin­ish­es with a flo­ral bou­quet of potent herbs.

There are a cou­ple things to con­sid­er when decid­ing whether to use Cam­pari or Aper­ol in a recipe. First, Cam­pari has a con­sid­er­ably bold­er fla­vor, while Aper­ol has a high­er sug­ar conent. If you pre­fer cock­tails that are bit­ter then Cam­pari will be your choice. It is hard­er to bal­ance and needs an equal part sweet­en­ing agent like a sweet ver­mouth. On the oth­er hand, since Aper­ol is smoother, it is also more versatile.

Sec­ond, always con­sid­er your col­or palette. Cam­pari is a dark­er ruby red, while Aper­ol has a lighter orange col­or­ing. (An inter­est­ing side note: Cam­pari used to get its red col­or­ing from carmine, which is made from cochineal bee­tles. Yes that’s right, I said beetles)

Third, Cam­pari hass near­ly dou­ble the alco­hol con­tent of Aper­ol. Aper­ol lends itself well to a milder, more refresh­ing sum­mer drink. Cam­pari is often in boozi­er drinks that pack a punch.

Aper­ol and Cam­pari will run you around $25 a bottle.

Here are two Post Pro­hi­bi­tion orig­i­nal recipes that fea­ture Cam­pari and Aperol.

The CutlasS

The Cutlass

Add all ingre­di­ents in a mix­ing glass except the orange twist. Dry shake the ingre­di­ents to incor­po­rate the egg, I like to use a hand held frother. Add ice and shake. Strain into a chilled cock­tail glass and gar­nish with the orange twist or blood orange wedge.

Sneaky PetE

Sneaky Pete

  • 2 oz Buf­fa­lo Trace Bourbon
  • 1/2 oz Campari
  • 1/2 oz Noil­ly Prat Sweet Vermouth
  • 1 oz fresh grape­fruit juice
  • 2 sprigs of rosemary
  • 1 grape­fruit twist

Mud­dle 1 rose­mary sprig light­ly in a mix­ing glass. Add all ingre­di­ents except the oth­er rose­mary sprig and the grape­fruit twist. Shake with ice. Dou­ble strain into an old fash­ioned glass on the rocks, or even bet­ter one giant ice cube. Gar­nish with a rose­mary sprig and grape­fruit twist.

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