In his book Everyday Drinking, Kingsley Amis, who would go on to author the first official James Bond novel after the death of Ian Fleming, described the Americano as “good at lunchtime and before Italian food.” He then went on to write: “If you feel that, pleasant as it is, it still lacks something, throw in a shot of gin and the result is a Negroni. This is a really fine invention. It has the power, rare with drinks and indeed with anything else, of cheering you up.” The first drink Bond has in Risico, while meeting with his contact Kristatos, is a Negroni, “with Gordon’s please” (in the movie For Your Eyes Only, which is loosely adapted in part from this story, the drink is changed to the Greek pastis ouzo, which happens to play a major role in Amis’ Bond novel, Colonel Sun). In the cinematic adaptation of Thunderball, Bond congratulates himself for disarming a henchman by mixing himself up a Negroni. The origins of the drink, like so many, are a mix of supposition and the acceptance of hearsay as fact because, eh, why not? That’s been the story for a long time.
And as that story goes, the Negroni was invented at the Caffè Casoni (formerly Caffè Giacosa) in Florence when Italian royal Count Camillo Negroni explained to the resident bartender, Fosco Scarselli, that, while the count did love himself an Americano, he wanted something similar but with a little more punch to it. Negroni suggested ditching the Americano’s soda in favor of gin. Scarselli obliged, also substituting a garnish of orange peel for the Americano’s lemon peel. And so was born the Negroni, according to the book Sulle Tracce del Conte: La Vera Storia del Cocktail Negroni, written in 2002 by Lucca Picchi.
This account seems reasonable but has been disputed by one Noel Negroni, a Connecticut insurance salesman who claims that it was a relative of his, Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni, a Corsican war hero who famously led the first cavalry charge of the Franco Prussian War of 1870, who invented the drink. According to Noel Negroni, there never was a Count Camillo Negroni, as no such person shows up in the Negroni family histories. Of course, Noel’s research doesn’t preclude there being a very different Negroni family than his own, or of one man having multiple names. And the fact that the almost universally accepted photo of Count Negroni isn’t Negroni at all but is, actually, anthropologist and explorer Arnold Henry Savage Landor. In the end, it seems like the true origin of the cocktail will remain disputed, but does ti really matter? Either way, we win.
Count Camillo Negroni himself, if indeed he existed, was an incredible individual who shared one peculiar trait with Seraffimo Spang, the eccentric head of the Spangled Mob in Fleming’s Diamonds Are Forever: they both loved dressing up like cowboys. Picchi’s book paints the portrait of a man who was the grandson of of English Romantic poet Walter Savage Landor and who spent a large portion of his life living in America, first working as a cowboy (thus his affinity for dressing up like one) and later as a gambler in New York City. It’s possible then that he was a bit of a Negroni family black sheep excised from official family histories. It’s also possible he’s a totally made up person, or some composite formed by years of barside chat. It’s also possible that Count Carmillo Negroni was a real person but was neither a count nor a Negroni, as “commoners” passing themselves off as eccentric and adventurous counts and barons and m’lords was common in the late 19th and early 20th century (you’d be amazed at how many mysterious counts and princesses and members of such and such royal family congregated in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s).
There seems to be no real proof that connects Pascal Negroni with the cocktail, even though he is a verified actual human being. Similarly, other than in articles about the origins of the Negroni, there’s not much definitive proof that Camillo Negroni existed. The sole source for the story about him comes from longstanding hearsay and Picchi’s book. Whatever the case may be, we drinkers win. For starters, the Negroni is a fabulous cocktail. Simple but complex, a baseline for judging the mixing prowess of any bartender. Second, the thing was invented either by a fist-pumping 19th century war hero who led a dramatic charge and basically lived like an Alexander Dumas character, or it was invented by an eccentric count who dressed up like a cowboy and gambled with gangsters in New York, or it was invented by a mad charlatan who claimed to be a count. Drop by the Caffe Giacosa (Piazza Strozzi 1, 50123 Florence) and toast both Count Negronis (cowboy attire optional). As another famous Negroni fan, Orson Welles, once said, ““The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.”
Negroni
- 1oz Campari
- 1 oz sweet red vermouth
- 1 oz ginShake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass or serve on the rocks in a tumbler. Garnish with an orange slice or orange peel.
Incidentally, it would be remiss not to mention that there is a variation of the Negroni, like the martini, that substitutes an ounce of vodka in place of the gin, the primary proponent of them being the character Nick Naylor in the book (but not in the movie) Thank You For Smoking. He defends the vodka and dismisses the gin as “girlie” with all the overbearing disdain of someone desperate to prove to themselves what they are doing is cool and manly. When Bond sips a Negroni in Italy, even though he’s prone to putting vodka in a Martini, he’s most certainly drinking the authentic and traditional recipe that uses gin. In fact he specifies his preferred brand: Gordon’s. Oh, you can also order it stirred, not shaken.
Filed under: Drink & Eat
