Martinis & Negronis

Ciao stelline e stellini 🙂

On the pure white plastic covers of my Italian kitchen, I have tacked on a series of drinks posters in an attempt to create some semblance of food or drink related pantry decor. [See picture.] I also have an abstract bibimbap design hung onto the middle of my fridge.

Ideally, my decorations stay in the orange and warm green zones – which sounds ghastly, but I’ve somehow made it work – so my hot sunset orange negroni poster is printed on A1 cardstock, and makes a lovely background for any zoom calls facing the south end of my house.

If you’ve ever been to the Milano Navigli at an ungodly hour, you’ve been presented with the option of a 4 Euro negroni which I can only describe as tasting like stomach acid. Tucci loves a negroni. In fact I think he called it: the sun in your stomach. So I think I’ve been having them made all wrong.

When I reach a recipe in this book that I am skeptical of – not for lack of talent and knowledge on Tucci’s part, but for lack of adequate taste buds on mine – I have a special tactic to conquer the task ahead: guests. If I don’t like it, someone will, and we won’t waste a perfectly lovely bottle of Campari, or box of lentils, or the like.

On my shop for the evening ahead I had quite a bit of trouble finding Vermouth. For the two recipes I was attempting, I needed two vermouths. Sweet red, and dry white. For some reason google.it did not have clear answers as to how to find vermouth, and also why are vermouth labels so secretive about being vermouth??? I had to call in the big guns and shoot a text to my personal wine advisory duo: Meg and Sophia. Their credentials include: working a at a wine shop, making lots of drinks, drinking lots of drinks…

They recommended this lovely sweet vermouth (Punt e Mes) which definitely contributed to the yummy end result. I also got some flowers – that I had to point out since no one commented on them, and taralli – which hardly anyone ate because someone brought Doritos.

The invitees were: Jillian (master cocktail shaker), Cate (leader of the martini charge), Tigran (king of orange slices), Nati (our local cocktail sweetener), and Giorgio (confused, i.e.; who is Tucci, why do you need to follow a recipe for a negroni, what is happening…)

We’ll get to the more controversial martini shortly, but the negroni was a hit. Nati’s negroni-lemonade mix aside, everyone else drank their cocktail straight, with no complaints. I used the fancy glasses, just like the ones in my kitchen art, which was nice.

It might not look like much on the picture, but I was definitely surprised by the taste. I’m a bit stuck I don’t know how to describe it. Ambre (who incidentally wasn’t present) is an adept smell and taste communicator. It’s a delicate thing, describing flavour from memory, but I’ll have a whack at it.

It wasn’t as bitter as my usual cheap negroni. It was warmer, and spiced. It looks like a classy kool-aid but it tastes like sweetened orange liquorice. And it was addictive – but strangely so. Like un-salted almonds, not like crisps.

Cate prepared the martini. There’s not much to it its basically just gin and vermouth if you can find it. But she did a great job. Here’s a picture of her swiping some lovely lemon twists on the glass rims.

I mean look I thought it was rank. But in that way that’s like – I know if this was just gin in a glass it would be so much more rank, so there must be something to it. Plus Tigran said it was tasty, and he seems to know more about martinis than I do, but maybe he was just pretending to know. Of that, he is capable. I know I used the word rank which is strong but I mean more like, it didn’t agree with me. But it was still positively surprising, like I was imagining a lot worse. I’m sure someone would love it. Nati and I drank it with lemonade. We are simply not cut out for the gin martini.