Notes from the Spritz Deck
Not so many days ago, I was in my favorite wine bar chatting with a friend. She was recounting a recent dinner invitation, when she paused peremptorily, as if to ward off judgment. “My friends asked me to bring a drink to dinner.” And then, as if at severe risk of being overheard, she said, “They asked me to bring a spritz.”
We live in the age of The Aperol Spritz. A healthy pour of bitter red Aperol, a splash of club soda, top it all off with Prosecco (or Champagne, if it is that kind of party). Maybe a perfunctory orange wedge or maraschino cherry, but why let fruit spoil the affair? It is the darling of sleeve-tattooed Millennials and joint-sleeved Boomers alike. It goes with brunch; it goes with bridge. It goes with a roof deck; it goes with a dormitory.
The young today would like to imagine that they invented the Spritz, or at least rescued it from the dustbin of mixological history. But the Spritz is as retro as the flared jeans that seem just as ubiquitous today. Peel away the marketing campaign, and the Spritz conjures up an age of leg warmers and unironic Rick Astley listening, when the only German Riesling worth knowing was Blue Nun (readers of a certain age, I feel you shudder through the screen). You are left, as my friend was, with the unseemly feeling of your skin cold crawling. Sure it is kitschy fun, but can we not do better than this electric red boogaloo of a cocktail? I have a modest suggestion.
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The Lambrusco Spritz
Version 1: The Original - easy, breezy, accessible.
Ingredients
Ice
1.5oz, Amaro Averna
0.5oz., fresh grapefruit juice
3oz., dry or off-dry Lambrusco
1oz., sparkling water, to top
1 grapefruit wedge, for serving
1-3 pitted Castelvetrano olives, for serving
Oversized wine glass
Recipe
Fill a wine glass ⅔ of the way with ice cubes. (If you are having trouble imagining an oversized wine glass, any ShondaLand television program will feature one prominently)
Shake the Amaro and grapefruit juice together with ice until well chilled. Pour into the prepared glass.
Add the Lambrusco and stir gently with a bar spoon until the ingredients are well mixed.
Top off with the sparkling water and garnish with the fruit and olives.
Version 2: The Cardinal’s Lambrusco Spritz (‘o Lambrusco di’ccardinale) - because in Naples, it is the priests, not the plutocrats, who know best how to live.
Ingredients
Ice
2.5oz, Amaro Nonino
0.5oz., fresh squeezed lemon juice
3.5oz., Cantina della Volta, Lambrusco BrutRosso
1 lemon peel, artfully carved with a channel knife
Crystal highball glass
Recipe
As above, for The Original, substituting the highball glass for the Scandal-level glassware, omitting the water, and using the lemon peel instead of the grapefruit and olives.
Si ‘a fatica fosse bona, ‘a farriano ‘e prievete.
“If work was fun, priests would do it too.” ~ Neapolitan proverb
