It takes seven times before you’ll like Campari
It was about six or seven years ago. I was enamoured with the marketing campaign for an exotic Italian liqueur. The ads all showed smart, sophisticated Europeans sipping a wondrously red drink from elegant, crystal glasses. The people in the ads were attractive, sexy and just flat gorgeous. I wanted to be like them.
I bought my first bottle of Campari and took it home.
On the bottle there was a bottle tag with two recipes: Campari and soda and something called a “Negroni.” With great expectation I mixed the simple highball: two parts club soda, one part Campari, served in a tall glass with lots of ice. I used my best crystal so I would experience the drink just like those people in the ads.
“Blah!” I yelled out loud. My wife looked at me strangely. (OK, that’s not so unusual.)
I didn’t like it.
I drank the whole drink and then mixed myself another, this time four parts soda, one part Campari.
I didn’t like that drink any better.
I would try Campari again and again over the next several weeks. But it didn’t matter how I mixed it: on the rocks, in a Negroni, as a shot. No matter what, I always had the same reaction: “Blah!”
Eventually, I shoved the bottle behind the thirty or so other bottles in the cabinet under my wet bar. I soon forgot I had it.
A few years later, I pulled the two-thirds full bottle out from its hiding place and remembered, bitterly, my previous experiences.
“Good riddance!” I said as I threw the bottle out.
Flash forward several years to late 2006.
I’m walking around my local Spec’s looking for something new to try and there’s that exotic red liqueur staring me in the face.
“Try me again,” I hear the bottle say. “The Italians have been drinking me for 146 years. I must be good for something.”
“Liar!” I scream. The store clerk asks me to keep the noise down.
But something inside me tells me that what the bottle said must be right. So, hesitantly, I put a bottle into my shopping cart and roll the cart to the checkout register.
Thirty minutes later, I’m sitting at home looking at a tall, elegant crystal glass with two parts club soda, one part Campari and lots of ice.
I take a reluctant sip.
“Hmm,” I say. “Needs a little gin and a touch of sweet vermouth.”
Negroni
1 ounce gin (I like Boodles for everyday)
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce Camparishake, serve up with an orange slice
2 Responses to “It takes seven times before you’ll like Campari”
Posted by: Cocktails & Gadgets - 04/17/2008
Hello John, the sort of gin you use makes all the difference in the world. Next time try Tanqueray #10. You need a strong, smooth gin to counterbalance the punch of the Campari. See my take on a Negroni at http://www.flenjo.com/negroni/
Posted by: jenny, bloggess - 05/15/2008
I love this story.
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