Aperitivo Culture

The aperitivo belongs to northern Italy, and its history runs through Turin and Milan, where the fortified and bitter drinks of the hour were first made and sold. Turin was the home of vermouth, a wine aromatised with wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and other botanicals, and the Americano rests on it together with Campari, a Milanese bitter. The word comes from the Latin aperire, to open, and names the purpose of the hour: to open the appetite before the table is laid. The Negroni is built on the Americano with gin in place of soda, and the Spritz belongs to the Veneto, where it grew out of wine lengthened with water. From the northern cities the custom spread to the bars and cafés of the whole peninsula.

Aperitivo is the Italian hour before dinner, in the late afternoon and early evening, when people gather at bars and cafés for a bitter, modest drink and a few small salted things. The word describes an occasion before it describes a drink. Its purpose is to stimulate the appetite and not to satisfy it, and for that reason the drinks chosen are low in sweetness, often bitter, and moderate in strength. A heavy or sugared drink would defeat the purpose. The classic drinks of the hour rest on bitter liqueurs and aromatised wines. The Spritz combines Aperol or Campari with Prosecco and soda, and is served in a large wine glass with a slice of orange. The Americano joins Campari, sweet vermouth and soda. The Negroni takes equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, and the Negroni Sbagliato replaces the gin with Prosecco for a lighter drink. Campari Soda, the simplest of them, is taken with nothing added but ice. The stuzzichini that accompany the glass are chosen to be salty and small: olives, crisps, nuts, small pieces of focaccia, cubes of mortadella, slivers of cheese or cured meat. Their salt invites the next sip, and their size keeps the appetite intact for the table. In more elaborate establishments the bites become small plates, but the principle holds that they accompany the drink and do not replace the meal. In Milan the hour has grown into the apericena, a contraction of aperitivo and cena, in which a bar sets out a buffet of pasta, salads and finger food included in the price of a drink. For many it stands in place of dinner. The classic aperitivo remains what it was, a pause between the working day and the evening, taken standing or seated, among colleagues and friends.

Bitterness is the governing taste of the hour. Campari, Aperol, Select and the vermouths owe it to their botanicals, among them wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) in vermouth, and it is bitterness together with low sweetness that is held to prepare the palate for food. Salt answers it on the plate: olives, cured meats, cheese and crisps sharpen the bitter drink and are in turn refreshed by it. Orange, ice and the effervescence of soda or Prosecco lighten the whole, so that the glass cleans the mouth and leaves it ready for the table.