London - Vintage Negroni at The Ritz

The Rivoli Bar at the Ritz in London offers possibly the most expensive Negroni available in London - priced at £90, it is made with genuine vintage ingredients.



Apparently the idea had formed originally when they had found old bottles of Gordon's gin, Campari and Martini (or some subset thereof) dating back as far as the 1950s in the cellars of the Ritz. Subsequently they've had to source bottles from auctions and so forth to meet the continuing demand (Master of Malt seems to be a good place to look for these). I believe when we visited, in June 2015, the bottles they were using did actually go back to the 50s.

It's unclear whether a drink like vermouth improves with age in the bottle - this seems to be largely uncharted territory. We tried the Martini Rosso by itself. Ordinarily of course, modern Martini Rosso is a cheap and cheerful vermouth and not something one would get excited about. However this vintage bottle was wonderfully intense - deep savoury notes and a strong celery like bitterness. It's unclear whether the difference was because the recipe has changed over the decades, or because there has been some aging effect - quite possibly a mix of the two.

As a piece of "bar theatre" this was an extremely memorable cocktail (I say that with some authority as I am writing this post in 2019 based on a visit in 2015!). The bar was relatively quiet and the staff were able to spend quite a lot of time with us talking about the drink and the ingredients.