Florence - Negroni Pilgrimage

Florence is the birthplace of my favourite cocktail, the Negroni. Legend has it that Count Negroni ordered an Americano cocktail (itself a long variant of the Milano e Torino cocktail) but wanted it to be made punchier, so requested the sparkling water be removed, and replaced with gin.

On one trip to Florence, in June 2014, it seemed appropriate to play homage to this fantastic cocktail, and go on a Negroni crawl around some of Florence's historic cafes. A pilgrimage, if you will.

Caffe Rivoire

We started our pilgrimage here, perhaps partly just because it was the closest to the place where we'd had lunch. My Florentine friend Lorenzo tells me that Rivoire claims to be the spirtual home of the Negroni, which I think is the gist of this plaque. If I recall correctly, at the time Count Negroni made his famous invention, both Rivoire and Casoni were under the same owner. Subsequently when Casoni was sold and the plaque moved here. Or something like that.

The lady behind the bar at Rivoire heard I was interested in the history of the cocktail, and offered to make one which she said was closer to the style of the original. Interestingly in addition to the gin this had a splash of sparkling water in it - so a sort of halfway house between the Americano and the Negroni. Also the usual slice of orange was replaced with a wedge of lime, which somehow seemed a bit harder to imagine being present in the "original".

Caffe Gilli

Not sure Gilli lays any particular claim to being the birthplace of the Negroni but it is another historic caffe in Florence which would have been around at the same time, and likely one of the first places the drink spread to beyond Casoni.

Caffe Giacosa (formerly Casoni)

Quite a small cafe by comparison to the first two, and in its modern guise as Caffe Giacosa, it had apparently become a bit of a fashionable hangout, owned by designer Roberto Cavalli. It was nice to see despite its trendy new incarnation it had not turned its back on its history as birthplace of the Negroni - they even had specially engraved glasses marking the event. This was actually a pretty good Negroni as well - they used Antica Formula for the vermouth if I recall correctly.