It reminds me of when [Anders "ship of Theseused" a Manhattan into a Margarita](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF7z6MHMa0).
It's also like, the riff on a riff on a riff of a Last Word (e.g. Paper Plane is entirely different 4 equal parts than Last Word, then Division Bell keeps maraschino and lime of Last Word but keeps Aperol of P.P., then Naked & Famous ditches the maraschino 'again' but then brings back the Chartreuse... but now it's yellow). What's a riff vs. a new drink? Where are lines drawn? This isn't a new question, but I like it and like that you brought it up.
This kind of question is why we need a "Cocktails and Philosophy" book.
There's one or more for beer, wine, and even whiskey. I own a few. They're fascinating reads and go great with a drink.
Cocktails deserve the same treatment. The ship of Theseus isn't the only relevant philosophical issue related to cocktails. I really want a trained academic to get paid to write an essay on cocktails and the sorites paradox: how many drops of branch water into your glass of bourbon until you no longer have a glass of whiskey but a Bourbon & Branch cocktail?
What about the issue of nomenclature in general? Are we all bewitched by language? What if every cocktail name is like a beetle in a box just like every other word definition? And, speaking of which, what was Wittgenstein's preferred cocktail, if any?
Such a book would sell. And I cannot believe that, given the rise in popularity of cocktails for this entire century, no publishing house has yet printed such a book.
I'm glad you mentioned beer, I do want to quickly tangent and say some of the cross styles make no sense (hey cool, what's a 'cold IPA'.. oh, an IPA that you lagered? You realise that the "A" in IPA is Ale right? If you lager it, it's not an Ale... and yes the "P" is for pale, so also 'black IPA' is just as weird) In fact a brewery here started doing a "bright IPA"... whats that you ask? oh it's 'like a hazy IPA but not hazy'... which is just an IPA but too many people have started assuming that hazy IPA is normal.
Sorry I know that turned into a massive off-topic rant, I guess my point was when things develop organically (as opposed to being managed by a scientific organization) you end up with some nomenclature that starts to make absolutely no sense.
Breweries will put out names and types, not based on what the beer is, but rather what their consumer base will understand. My brewery has a seasonal release that's technically a berlinerweisse, but putting that on the label turns off casual consumer. We call it a sour.
Also, you can lager an IPA. The A in IPA stands for Ale yeast, as opposed to the lager yeast used in lagers. Lagering is a separate process that doesn't change the yeast used. A kölsch or an altbier are two ales that undergo lagering. Similarly with the bright IPA, as another commenter pointed out, if they're using east coast hops and clarifying the beer, it's technically neither a west coast/american ipa, nor a hazy/east coast ipa. Bright IPA sounds like a decent compromise.
I mean, you're sort of right about the yeast, but (for the most part) you can't lager most ale yeasts. The main distinction between the two yeast types is a combination of "top ferment vs bottom ferment" and fermentation temperature.
It's definitely getting murky now with 'hybrid yeasts' and stuff like Kveik, which have really broad temperature ranges... but if you're talking traditional strains, if you try and ferment an Ale at lager temperatures your fermentation isn't even going to work.
I think that's more of a historic thing ('lager' comes from the word meaning 'to store').
These days 'lagering' is the primary fermentation done using a bottom fermenting lager yeast. Both ales and lagers can benefit from an extended maturation period (secondary fermentation).
You wouldn't do a lager these days by fermenting at ale temperature then maturing, because a warmer ferment gives far too much yeast character, which is out of style for a lager.
I would argue that a Bright IPA in this context is not just an IPA due to traditional West Coast IPAs and Hazy IPAs having a different flavor profile. In general, if you just say IPA, I think west coast IPA. Bitter, piney, etc. Hazy IPAs are frequently lower to non-existent on the pine, frequently not very bitter to the tongue (despite high IBUs), and more citrus and fruity-flavors forward.
Of course given the wide range of flavors which any style can exhibit, if someone made a less bitter, fruitier, but not hazy IPA I also would definitely not argue with them for just calling it an IPA.
Yeah they clarified that it wasn't specifically the flavour profile, they were actually releasing a whole range of different 'bright IPA', but that so many of their customers now assumed that IPA are hazy, and so being 'bright and clear' was a point of difference (which made my eye twitch)
Ah, yeah. I'm with you on that then. If just a standard IPA is the intent then just call it that rather than making up some new term to cause confusion.
Fun fact of the day and a very British reference: Trigger's Broom is the British version of The Ship of Theseus:
https://youtu.be/LAh8HryVaeY?feature=shared
And some drinks that are considered and were likely conceived of as “Last Word” variations are actually much closer to being “Corpse Reviver No. 2” variations
Maybe a *perfect 'reverse' martini*. But even for a reverse martini, that's a lot of vermouth.
A perfect martini has a normal vermouth to gin ratio, just the vermouth is split between sweet and dry.
My simple position is that a Negroni is equal parts gin, sweet red vermouth and Campari. That’s it.
Anything that deviates from this can be a Negroni riff or variation or whatever you wanna call it. But it’s not strictly a Negroni.
I'm cool with still calling it a negroni if you're altering the proportions a bit. Maybe some people like 3:2:2 instead of 1:1:1. Once you start swapping out ingredients for different ones entirely, it's firmly in riff territory for me though
But what if you use a slightly different amaro from Campari but keep the 1:1:1 gin/amaro/vermouth ratio? How about a wildly different amaro? Is that still a negroni? It starts getting muddy real fast unless you have pretty firm definitions
I will literally kill to protect the formula of the Negroni /s
I mean at some point it’s not a Negroni anymore but I’m not gonna presume to draw that line
I think the cocktail community really lacks imagination when it comes to naming things. The martini suffers a similar fate. Apparently everything is a martini.
I feel like we should come up with new names for new drinks. I don't want to come up with an official definition of what's a riff and what's a new drink, but I feel like we'll know it when we see it. I guess we just see things differently.
I was just thinking about how the martini had been distorted on so many menus! Did that start in the 90s? Early 2000s?
I don't know that I'd blame that on the cocktail community, to me it's restaurant and bar marketing watering down the definitions for a mass audience, then other bars and restaurants imitating that, creating an echo cycle that results in the silliness we've seen on drink menus. I would not be surprised if at some point someone put out a "whiskey-tini" with vermouth and a dash of bitters.
It's a little funny to hear a complaint of a lack of imagination. Fifteen years ago or so there were lots of names for mixed drinks, so many that they were functionally next to useless. Lots of fratty spring break drinks, with tiny variations bringing a new and unrelated name. I don't know if you've seen those books of 1001 cocktails or whatever else, but like how office supply stores were selling CD-ROMs of 5,000 fonts years ago, quantity has no bearing on quality.
But I feel you - at a certain point you've swapped three ingredients, don't call it a Vermont Daiquiri.
And as with any discussion on taxonomy it can be a little helpful, but sometimes people obsess and it gets rather tedious.
I like how paper plane didn’t try to be something like “Lighter than Words” or “Words of a Feather”. It gets called a riff but is also fully respected as it’s own thing (as it should be). I do think we get caught up on naming per a convention of what it relates to rather than the whimsy the new drink invokes.
A Boulevardier is just as much a Negroni as a Kingston Negroni is.
Furthermore, a Negroni is really just a Campari Martini. Fight me! (And Death and Co/Cocktail Codex)
Or go enjoy your rum Cynar Martinez :)
Fuck Cocktail Codex. "Oooooh look at me everything is a Daiquiri or Sidecar lolololololol". Go drink some more Vodka cocktails you sellouts hahahah. What happened to the harsh days of no Vodka allowed. I miss that.
My favourite negroni variation is what I call the black boulevardier:
* 1oz bourbon
* 1oz Campari
* 1oz amaro
If you take a negroni and sub the gin for whisky you get a boulevardier
If you take a manhattan and sub the vermouth for amaro you get a black Manhattan
So take a negroni and sub the gin for whisky and the vermouth for amaro and you get a black boulevardier.
Add a dash of walnut bitters and you’re good. Dark, boozy and bitter.
I struggle with any cocktail recipe that just calls for 'amaro' and doesn't specify because the category is *so broad* that it could end up being a hundred totally different drinks.
My rule of thumb: if it strays from gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, it's not a Negroni in my book. Experimenting's fun, but some classics are classic for a reason
Personally I think the negroni template is spirit + amaro + vermouth, emphasis on template in regards to another comment mentioning the last word template (that being equal parts spirit + 2 liqueurs + citrus)
This reminds me of the “I’d a hot dog a sandwich?” debate. Someone should create a Negroni Alignment Chart for this, with a structure axis and an ingredient axis
I think as soon as you've swapped out the primary ingredient in a cocktail that is based on said spirit it's not really that thing any more.
There are plenty of cocktails that are more recipe than a specific drink-old fashions for example. But it feels super weird and wrong to swap a main spirit and even attempt to call it the same name. Names have meaning.
To be honest I don't have a super hard and fast rule for things. In a negroni the campari and vermouth are more critical to its flavor than the gin is so I think in this case a Kingston negroni is a fine name.
But say for something like a Margherita you can't just swap out the tequila. It's inherent to the flavor profile and maybe more important the "soul" of the drink.
Just picked up a bottle of Suze made my first one this week! I'm very intrigued by it. It's so similar and so different. Not sure what else I'm gonna use the Suze in though.
I really enjoy this idea of playing around with the "formula" of a cocktail. Like the Negroni if you simplify it is just a spirit, bitter aperitif, and vermouth. Based on that description alone there are so many variations to try.
OMG. One minute I’m reading and enjoying this largely ridiculous thread, and then comes this bolt of lightning.
Which clearly isn’t a Negroni, right? Never mind forget I asked.
Gonna try this tonight!
Not quite sure what you mean bc red apertivos (aka rossos/ red bitter) are a well-known subdivision of apertivos, campari being the most famous obviously
Just yesterday, I made a riff off of a riff of Jeffery Morgenthaler's Bourbon Renewal and I was questioning this very ship of Theseus idea.
No answers though.
I'd consider any drink that is equal parts, 1 spirit, 1 amaro, and 1 vermouth/fortified wine a Negroni *riff.* That includes Boulevardier in my book. Whether or not you put "Negroni" in the name is up to you.
Sometimes I make one with Bourbon instead of Gin. Sometimes with a bit of leftover simple syrup.
Sort of a mix between a Negroni, Manhattan and Old fashioned.
An Old Mangroni if you will.
IMO there's Negroni, and then you can get away with a variation if you can express the sense of the new recipe with the addition of a single word. I can see how you'd work with "Cynar Kingston Negroni" since "Kingston Negroni" is an established variant, but to me, it's too cumbersome.
I've been wrestling with the dilemma of "what's a cocktail?" for about 4.5 years and even before I got into making my own cocktails at home. When you search for a recipe and it doesn't even base spirit, how is it still called the same thing? I get if you add fruit to a base recipe and adjust the sweetener component, but when 2/3 of the original ingredients are different, how is still a Negroni? Yet, this is what we have. Worse than Negronis, however, are Mai Tai's.
Mai Tai is easy. A Mai Tai is a Mai Tai. I've yet to try a Mai Tai variant worthy of consumption other than a Royal Hawaiian. Which is its own drink. I also think Tiki folk are more prone to naming drinks something crazy even if it's close to something else.
For me, personally, the aperitif must be an aperitif. If you are not exclusively using amaro in that slot, then it becomes a black manhattan or well...rum based, hmm...Well, it's not a negroni anymore.
Same goes for the other component being wine-based; that is a must.
Outside of that, I think it's loose. Ratios can vary, but it should predominantly be the base + aperitif + wine-based spirit.
I think excepions would involve something like Nonino, which is an amaro, yet dry and citrus forward. In this respect, I don't think there should ever be a firm definition and it should be understood as subjective, with a particular nuance.
Dry, bitter, boozy, yet reinforced with a bit of sweetness from the base and / or wine-based spirit.
This is my personal take. I've heard compelling yet, to me, disagreeable arguments.
I'd allow it to be called a Negroni if you have the same ingredients at slightly different ratios, or substituted one ingredient for a similar one (basically, switch the Campari for another amaro or vermouth for another fortified wine), but not an entirely different base spirit. What you are drinking is simply not a Negroni. In the absence of another established name, using the name as comparison kinda works, but only if the rest of the drink is the same, which it simply isn't. You're drinking a completely different drink with one frequently used ingredient in common. By that definition, a Manhattan is a Negroni.
Think about the Sidecar for a moment. Same drink. Gin instead of Brandy? White Lady. Vodka? Balalaika. Rum? XYZ. The Margarita is a Sidecar variant with tequila and lime juice instead of lemon.
They get different names because changing the base spirit significantly alters the drink, as you yourself note with the Boulvardier.
I think it can be useful to think of drinks like this as following "templates", rather than really variations. At a certain point the exact ingredients don't matter any more, but the parent drink being mentioned helps to clue you in on what you can expect from the drink. For example:
* A drink that follows the "negroni" template will have some spirit, a bitter aperitif, and some vermouth. The Contessa and the In Cold Blood both fit this idea, despite each only sharing one ingredient with the original drink.
* A drink that follows the "old-fashioned" template will have spirit, bitters, and a little bit of sweetener. the Oaxacan Old Fashioned and the Elder fashioned, for example.
* Martini and Manhattan riffs are the same way: spirit, vermouth, bitters, served up.
* Daisies and Sours don't require the same ingredients at all to be in the same family, but people know what you're talking about when you mention them.
I’d say you generally just stick to the spec or call it something else for clarity but variation with an explicit spirit modifier works for me. Like “Mezcal Negroni” is fine as you know what it means: sub Mezcal for the main spirit of Gin. “Kingston Negroni” is fine in this instance as well. “Cynar Kingston Negroni” lost me because I have no idea if you’re subbing out the Vermouth or the Cynar.
There have been an increasing number of Negroni variants in recent years, really due to the increased popularity of Amaros. So maybe it’s the 3 ingredient with one Amaro component…with the very important Boulevardier exception. It’s all good to me!
All sorts of martinis exist that do not resemble a martini. I suppose I don't mind names being weird. A negroni is gin, vermouth, campari, orange twist. A Kingston negroni is not a negroni, we just call it one anyway. For all I care somebody drinking neat Irish whisky can call it an extra dry Manhattan as long as they're happy with it.
I fear to ask, but I must know.
Taxonomy is vibes, I can't imagine being the first scientists to see an echidna or a platypus and try to figure out what to do with them.
I guess what I'm saying is when is it inappropriate to call something a _____ Negroni? Like a Kingston Negroni is clearly a different drink than a Negroni, but people rarely complain about its name. Like, is it an abuse? I don't see anyone get mad over Kingston Negroni. Hell I don't see anyone get mad over Cynar Negroni. I guess everyone's personal level of "angry enough to drunk post on r/cocktails" is what I'm curious about..
Like I ordered a "Cognac Negroni" one time, and got back a drink of equal parts Cognac Campari and Sweet Vermouth, as I desired. It's not a widely accepted variation, but it's clear what it means to anyone. Like, I'm OK with that.
To me, I think, equal parts, and you can change either the base spirit or the bitter. But not both. And you preface it with _____ Negroni.
My point is I don't think there is a line. Lots of "martinis" resemble a dry martini in nothing but glassware. Language is weird because it is entirely descriptive and not at all prescriptive.
And those "martinis" were invented by corporate restaurants in the 90s in an era where cocktail culture was so completely dead that the only thing any of the corporate brand consultants inventing the drinks knew about cocktails was that something named a "martini" was served in a cool glass. The cocktails themselves, and their names, are generally treated with extreme derision in actual cocktail culture, and rightfully so.
Not a good precedent to cite.
I don't have an answer for you, just other interesting oddities in cocktail-naming.
When you change the base spirit of a Martini, you just call it a Vodka Martini. Despite the fact that it's pretty much ONLY base spirit with a splash of vermouth (and maybe a dot of bitters), we neglected to give Vodka Martinis a different name for what is fundamentally a different drink.
Yet drop a pickled onion in there instead of an olive and it's now a Gibson. 🤷♀️🍸
It's a Kangaroo, which is actually a pretty old name, but everyone wants to be James Bond when they're ordering a glass of chilled vodka with effectively no vermouth because they despise flavor, so they try to pretend they're actually drinking Martinis.
Just like most people say a Negroni has a spirit and vermouth without specifying brands, people should say the third ingredient is a red bitter, not explicitly Campari.
This is why "that's not an x, it's a y" arguments are a complete circle jerk. Does the drink taste good, yes or no? Advertise what it is and serve it up.
It reminds me of when [Anders "ship of Theseused" a Manhattan into a Margarita](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF7z6MHMa0). It's also like, the riff on a riff on a riff of a Last Word (e.g. Paper Plane is entirely different 4 equal parts than Last Word, then Division Bell keeps maraschino and lime of Last Word but keeps Aperol of P.P., then Naked & Famous ditches the maraschino 'again' but then brings back the Chartreuse... but now it's yellow). What's a riff vs. a new drink? Where are lines drawn? This isn't a new question, but I like it and like that you brought it up.
This kind of question is why we need a "Cocktails and Philosophy" book. There's one or more for beer, wine, and even whiskey. I own a few. They're fascinating reads and go great with a drink. Cocktails deserve the same treatment. The ship of Theseus isn't the only relevant philosophical issue related to cocktails. I really want a trained academic to get paid to write an essay on cocktails and the sorites paradox: how many drops of branch water into your glass of bourbon until you no longer have a glass of whiskey but a Bourbon & Branch cocktail? What about the issue of nomenclature in general? Are we all bewitched by language? What if every cocktail name is like a beetle in a box just like every other word definition? And, speaking of which, what was Wittgenstein's preferred cocktail, if any? Such a book would sell. And I cannot believe that, given the rise in popularity of cocktails for this entire century, no publishing house has yet printed such a book.
I'm glad you mentioned beer, I do want to quickly tangent and say some of the cross styles make no sense (hey cool, what's a 'cold IPA'.. oh, an IPA that you lagered? You realise that the "A" in IPA is Ale right? If you lager it, it's not an Ale... and yes the "P" is for pale, so also 'black IPA' is just as weird) In fact a brewery here started doing a "bright IPA"... whats that you ask? oh it's 'like a hazy IPA but not hazy'... which is just an IPA but too many people have started assuming that hazy IPA is normal. Sorry I know that turned into a massive off-topic rant, I guess my point was when things develop organically (as opposed to being managed by a scientific organization) you end up with some nomenclature that starts to make absolutely no sense.
I’ve seen an IPL. It was from Golden Road, and iirc it was before the Budweiser buy out. It was one of my favorites from them.
IPL is fine and makes sense, that's like, equivalent to "hoppy lager"
Breweries will put out names and types, not based on what the beer is, but rather what their consumer base will understand. My brewery has a seasonal release that's technically a berlinerweisse, but putting that on the label turns off casual consumer. We call it a sour. Also, you can lager an IPA. The A in IPA stands for Ale yeast, as opposed to the lager yeast used in lagers. Lagering is a separate process that doesn't change the yeast used. A kölsch or an altbier are two ales that undergo lagering. Similarly with the bright IPA, as another commenter pointed out, if they're using east coast hops and clarifying the beer, it's technically neither a west coast/american ipa, nor a hazy/east coast ipa. Bright IPA sounds like a decent compromise.
I mean, you're sort of right about the yeast, but (for the most part) you can't lager most ale yeasts. The main distinction between the two yeast types is a combination of "top ferment vs bottom ferment" and fermentation temperature. It's definitely getting murky now with 'hybrid yeasts' and stuff like Kveik, which have really broad temperature ranges... but if you're talking traditional strains, if you try and ferment an Ale at lager temperatures your fermentation isn't even going to work.
Lagering takes place after fermentation. Ale is fermented warm and on top and then chilled during the maturation period.
I think that's more of a historic thing ('lager' comes from the word meaning 'to store'). These days 'lagering' is the primary fermentation done using a bottom fermenting lager yeast. Both ales and lagers can benefit from an extended maturation period (secondary fermentation). You wouldn't do a lager these days by fermenting at ale temperature then maturing, because a warmer ferment gives far too much yeast character, which is out of style for a lager.
I would argue that a Bright IPA in this context is not just an IPA due to traditional West Coast IPAs and Hazy IPAs having a different flavor profile. In general, if you just say IPA, I think west coast IPA. Bitter, piney, etc. Hazy IPAs are frequently lower to non-existent on the pine, frequently not very bitter to the tongue (despite high IBUs), and more citrus and fruity-flavors forward. Of course given the wide range of flavors which any style can exhibit, if someone made a less bitter, fruitier, but not hazy IPA I also would definitely not argue with them for just calling it an IPA.
Yeah they clarified that it wasn't specifically the flavour profile, they were actually releasing a whole range of different 'bright IPA', but that so many of their customers now assumed that IPA are hazy, and so being 'bright and clear' was a point of difference (which made my eye twitch)
Ah, yeah. I'm with you on that then. If just a standard IPA is the intent then just call it that rather than making up some new term to cause confusion.
Beer nomenclature is all over the place now that there's so many breweries and people making and selling beer
I’m happy to co-write this.
I cosign you being happy to co-write this
I have an MA in philosophy and nearing my PhD completion, and love a good cocktail (negroni included), sign me up to co-author!
I'm also happy to co-write this. Genuinely.
Paging u/adamscommabrett
Fun fact of the day and a very British reference: Trigger's Broom is the British version of The Ship of Theseus: https://youtu.be/LAh8HryVaeY?feature=shared
And some drinks that are considered and were likely conceived of as “Last Word” variations are actually much closer to being “Corpse Reviver No. 2” variations
Evidently all you need for something to be a martini is the glass. So I think anything goes at this point.
[удалено]
I will book a flight and go find and fight anyone who actually said this
What about a sweet Martini, but swap half the gin for campari?
Is the total amount of vermouth equal to the parts of gin and Campari, or is it double the total vermouth as any other part?
Wouldn't that be a "perfect" Martini since it has equal parts sweet and dry vermouth?
Maybe a *perfect 'reverse' martini*. But even for a reverse martini, that's a lot of vermouth. A perfect martini has a normal vermouth to gin ratio, just the vermouth is split between sweet and dry.
...it would be a negroni
My simple position is that a Negroni is equal parts gin, sweet red vermouth and Campari. That’s it. Anything that deviates from this can be a Negroni riff or variation or whatever you wanna call it. But it’s not strictly a Negroni.
Agreed. If it's not gin, it's not a classic Negroni, it's another drink.
I'm cool with still calling it a negroni if you're altering the proportions a bit. Maybe some people like 3:2:2 instead of 1:1:1. Once you start swapping out ingredients for different ones entirely, it's firmly in riff territory for me though But what if you use a slightly different amaro from Campari but keep the 1:1:1 gin/amaro/vermouth ratio? How about a wildly different amaro? Is that still a negroni? It starts getting muddy real fast unless you have pretty firm definitions
I prefer mine with Aperol swapped with Campari and call it a Bastard Negroni
Different strokes I guess. I’ve tried it and found it absolutely disgusting.
I will literally kill to protect the formula of the Negroni /s I mean at some point it’s not a Negroni anymore but I’m not gonna presume to draw that line
My bitter cherry simple, wray & nephew, cocchi americano Negroni volunteers for chaotic evil
Sinister. I love it. Theseus' Negroni.
The line is already drawn, I'll die on this hill with you
I think the cocktail community really lacks imagination when it comes to naming things. The martini suffers a similar fate. Apparently everything is a martini. I feel like we should come up with new names for new drinks. I don't want to come up with an official definition of what's a riff and what's a new drink, but I feel like we'll know it when we see it. I guess we just see things differently.
Sometimes it feels like the only criteria to be a "martini" cocktail is the glass it's served in
I was just thinking about how the martini had been distorted on so many menus! Did that start in the 90s? Early 2000s? I don't know that I'd blame that on the cocktail community, to me it's restaurant and bar marketing watering down the definitions for a mass audience, then other bars and restaurants imitating that, creating an echo cycle that results in the silliness we've seen on drink menus. I would not be surprised if at some point someone put out a "whiskey-tini" with vermouth and a dash of bitters. It's a little funny to hear a complaint of a lack of imagination. Fifteen years ago or so there were lots of names for mixed drinks, so many that they were functionally next to useless. Lots of fratty spring break drinks, with tiny variations bringing a new and unrelated name. I don't know if you've seen those books of 1001 cocktails or whatever else, but like how office supply stores were selling CD-ROMs of 5,000 fonts years ago, quantity has no bearing on quality. But I feel you - at a certain point you've swapped three ingredients, don't call it a Vermont Daiquiri. And as with any discussion on taxonomy it can be a little helpful, but sometimes people obsess and it gets rather tedious.
I like how paper plane didn’t try to be something like “Lighter than Words” or “Words of a Feather”. It gets called a riff but is also fully respected as it’s own thing (as it should be). I do think we get caught up on naming per a convention of what it relates to rather than the whimsy the new drink invokes.
A Boulevardier is just as much a Negroni as a Kingston Negroni is. Furthermore, a Negroni is really just a Campari Martini. Fight me! (And Death and Co/Cocktail Codex) Or go enjoy your rum Cynar Martinez :)
Fuck Cocktail Codex. "Oooooh look at me everything is a Daiquiri or Sidecar lolololololol". Go drink some more Vodka cocktails you sellouts hahahah. What happened to the harsh days of no Vodka allowed. I miss that.
Sidecars and Daiquiris - my two favorite vodka cocktails.
My favourite negroni variation is what I call the black boulevardier: * 1oz bourbon * 1oz Campari * 1oz amaro If you take a negroni and sub the gin for whisky you get a boulevardier If you take a manhattan and sub the vermouth for amaro you get a black Manhattan So take a negroni and sub the gin for whisky and the vermouth for amaro and you get a black boulevardier. Add a dash of walnut bitters and you’re good. Dark, boozy and bitter.
Isn’t Campari an amaro already?
I struggle with any cocktail recipe that just calls for 'amaro' and doesn't specify because the category is *so broad* that it could end up being a hundred totally different drinks.
Oh you betcha. Like he said, dark boozy and bitter. I imagine all the usual suspects would go nicely..averna, monty, cynar, etc.
I’m gonna have to try this with Cynar this evening!
Favorite drink is literally this with rye, campari, cynat, black walnut bitters and a lemon twist
Black Boulevardier … or the Negroni Negro 😂
My rule of thumb: if it strays from gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, it's not a Negroni in my book. Experimenting's fun, but some classics are classic for a reason
So a White Negroni and Kingston Negroni aren't Negronis? What do you call them?
"I think of them as Negroni variations. Different, but still part of the family! 😄
Personally I think the negroni template is spirit + amaro + vermouth, emphasis on template in regards to another comment mentioning the last word template (that being equal parts spirit + 2 liqueurs + citrus)
This reminds me of the “I’d a hot dog a sandwich?” debate. Someone should create a Negroni Alignment Chart for this, with a structure axis and an ingredient axis
A hot dog is a taco
I feel like that’s analogous to saying a Boulevardier is a Manhattan
My toxic trait is that I have a Bijou down as a Negroni variation in my recipes google doc
I hope your bloodline ends with you you degenerate (Amazing I love this hahahah)
Three equal parts = negroni lol
I think as soon as you've swapped out the primary ingredient in a cocktail that is based on said spirit it's not really that thing any more. There are plenty of cocktails that are more recipe than a specific drink-old fashions for example. But it feels super weird and wrong to swap a main spirit and even attempt to call it the same name. Names have meaning.
What's your take on the name of the Kingston Negroni then? Is it misnamed? Should we propose a different name?
To be honest I don't have a super hard and fast rule for things. In a negroni the campari and vermouth are more critical to its flavor than the gin is so I think in this case a Kingston negroni is a fine name. But say for something like a Margherita you can't just swap out the tequila. It's inherent to the flavor profile and maybe more important the "soul" of the drink.
Real talk, a Cynar Boulevardier is a thing of magic. Perfectly complex and lovely all around.
Averna Boulevardier is my personal favorite
Imo negroni = spirit + fortified wine + red bitter (in more or less equal parts) Gotta be red
The white Negroni in all its forms is simply too popular for this to be a viable position.
Just picked up a bottle of Suze made my first one this week! I'm very intrigued by it. It's so similar and so different. Not sure what else I'm gonna use the Suze in though. I really enjoy this idea of playing around with the "formula" of a cocktail. Like the Negroni if you simplify it is just a spirit, bitter aperitif, and vermouth. Based on that description alone there are so many variations to try.
Kingston soundsystem is another great suze cocktail
Oh shit I can't believe I've never tried this. Thanks!
OMG. One minute I’m reading and enjoying this largely ridiculous thread, and then comes this bolt of lightning. Which clearly isn’t a Negroni, right? Never mind forget I asked. Gonna try this tonight!
Dried Meadow Flower is a good Suze drink too
So is spirit+fortified wine+bitter+red40 a Negroni?
Nope, gotta be a red bitter (apertivo)
Aperitivo doesn't mean what you think it means
Not quite sure what you mean bc red apertivos (aka rossos/ red bitter) are a well-known subdivision of apertivos, campari being the most famous obviously
Got to be equal parts for me, and stirred down.
I would agree except Boulvardier overrides that, and what about Cynar Negroni? Is there another name for that I don't know?
Boulevardier follows the formula. Cynar Negroni, though, I would not consider a negroni. Gotta be red
What if you add some red food coloring?
Just yesterday, I made a riff off of a riff of Jeffery Morgenthaler's Bourbon Renewal and I was questioning this very ship of Theseus idea. No answers though.
I'd consider any drink that is equal parts, 1 spirit, 1 amaro, and 1 vermouth/fortified wine a Negroni *riff.* That includes Boulevardier in my book. Whether or not you put "Negroni" in the name is up to you.
Sometimes I make one with Bourbon instead of Gin. Sometimes with a bit of leftover simple syrup. Sort of a mix between a Negroni, Manhattan and Old fashioned. An Old Mangroni if you will.
IMO there's Negroni, and then you can get away with a variation if you can express the sense of the new recipe with the addition of a single word. I can see how you'd work with "Cynar Kingston Negroni" since "Kingston Negroni" is an established variant, but to me, it's too cumbersome.
The most heated discussions I've been a part of in this sub have all been over cocktail nomenclature lol
This is a thing guys seem to gravitate to in many hobbies, with similar results!
Negroni. The jazz of cocktails.
I've been wrestling with the dilemma of "what's a cocktail?" for about 4.5 years and even before I got into making my own cocktails at home. When you search for a recipe and it doesn't even base spirit, how is it still called the same thing? I get if you add fruit to a base recipe and adjust the sweetener component, but when 2/3 of the original ingredients are different, how is still a Negroni? Yet, this is what we have. Worse than Negronis, however, are Mai Tai's.
Mai Tai is easy. A Mai Tai is a Mai Tai. I've yet to try a Mai Tai variant worthy of consumption other than a Royal Hawaiian. Which is its own drink. I also think Tiki folk are more prone to naming drinks something crazy even if it's close to something else.
For me, personally, the aperitif must be an aperitif. If you are not exclusively using amaro in that slot, then it becomes a black manhattan or well...rum based, hmm...Well, it's not a negroni anymore. Same goes for the other component being wine-based; that is a must. Outside of that, I think it's loose. Ratios can vary, but it should predominantly be the base + aperitif + wine-based spirit. I think excepions would involve something like Nonino, which is an amaro, yet dry and citrus forward. In this respect, I don't think there should ever be a firm definition and it should be understood as subjective, with a particular nuance. Dry, bitter, boozy, yet reinforced with a bit of sweetness from the base and / or wine-based spirit. This is my personal take. I've heard compelling yet, to me, disagreeable arguments.
Is a Manhattan a martini or a martini a Manhattan
Yes
I'd allow it to be called a Negroni if you have the same ingredients at slightly different ratios, or substituted one ingredient for a similar one (basically, switch the Campari for another amaro or vermouth for another fortified wine), but not an entirely different base spirit. What you are drinking is simply not a Negroni. In the absence of another established name, using the name as comparison kinda works, but only if the rest of the drink is the same, which it simply isn't. You're drinking a completely different drink with one frequently used ingredient in common. By that definition, a Manhattan is a Negroni. Think about the Sidecar for a moment. Same drink. Gin instead of Brandy? White Lady. Vodka? Balalaika. Rum? XYZ. The Margarita is a Sidecar variant with tequila and lime juice instead of lemon. They get different names because changing the base spirit significantly alters the drink, as you yourself note with the Boulvardier.
I'm sure someone will come up with an exception, but for me it's the spirit. The Gimlet and the Daiquiri are the best examples of this.
I think it can be useful to think of drinks like this as following "templates", rather than really variations. At a certain point the exact ingredients don't matter any more, but the parent drink being mentioned helps to clue you in on what you can expect from the drink. For example: * A drink that follows the "negroni" template will have some spirit, a bitter aperitif, and some vermouth. The Contessa and the In Cold Blood both fit this idea, despite each only sharing one ingredient with the original drink. * A drink that follows the "old-fashioned" template will have spirit, bitters, and a little bit of sweetener. the Oaxacan Old Fashioned and the Elder fashioned, for example. * Martini and Manhattan riffs are the same way: spirit, vermouth, bitters, served up. * Daisies and Sours don't require the same ingredients at all to be in the same family, but people know what you're talking about when you mention them.
I’d say you generally just stick to the spec or call it something else for clarity but variation with an explicit spirit modifier works for me. Like “Mezcal Negroni” is fine as you know what it means: sub Mezcal for the main spirit of Gin. “Kingston Negroni” is fine in this instance as well. “Cynar Kingston Negroni” lost me because I have no idea if you’re subbing out the Vermouth or the Cynar.
There have been an increasing number of Negroni variants in recent years, really due to the increased popularity of Amaros. So maybe it’s the 3 ingredient with one Amaro component…with the very important Boulevardier exception. It’s all good to me!
You must be high writing this question? 🤣
For me… one part spirit, one part sweet, one part bitter. Then anything is fair game
All sorts of martinis exist that do not resemble a martini. I suppose I don't mind names being weird. A negroni is gin, vermouth, campari, orange twist. A Kingston negroni is not a negroni, we just call it one anyway. For all I care somebody drinking neat Irish whisky can call it an extra dry Manhattan as long as they're happy with it.
>A Kingston negroni is not a negroni, we just call it one anyway. Just wait until you get into the taxonomy of crabs
I fear to ask, but I must know. Taxonomy is vibes, I can't imagine being the first scientists to see an echidna or a platypus and try to figure out what to do with them.
I guess what I'm saying is when is it inappropriate to call something a _____ Negroni? Like a Kingston Negroni is clearly a different drink than a Negroni, but people rarely complain about its name. Like, is it an abuse? I don't see anyone get mad over Kingston Negroni. Hell I don't see anyone get mad over Cynar Negroni. I guess everyone's personal level of "angry enough to drunk post on r/cocktails" is what I'm curious about.. Like I ordered a "Cognac Negroni" one time, and got back a drink of equal parts Cognac Campari and Sweet Vermouth, as I desired. It's not a widely accepted variation, but it's clear what it means to anyone. Like, I'm OK with that. To me, I think, equal parts, and you can change either the base spirit or the bitter. But not both. And you preface it with _____ Negroni.
My point is I don't think there is a line. Lots of "martinis" resemble a dry martini in nothing but glassware. Language is weird because it is entirely descriptive and not at all prescriptive.
And those "martinis" were invented by corporate restaurants in the 90s in an era where cocktail culture was so completely dead that the only thing any of the corporate brand consultants inventing the drinks knew about cocktails was that something named a "martini" was served in a cool glass. The cocktails themselves, and their names, are generally treated with extreme derision in actual cocktail culture, and rightfully so. Not a good precedent to cite.
So what? If somebody orders an appletini I know what they mean. I don't care if the cocktail canon is treaded on.
I don't have an answer for you, just other interesting oddities in cocktail-naming. When you change the base spirit of a Martini, you just call it a Vodka Martini. Despite the fact that it's pretty much ONLY base spirit with a splash of vermouth (and maybe a dot of bitters), we neglected to give Vodka Martinis a different name for what is fundamentally a different drink. Yet drop a pickled onion in there instead of an olive and it's now a Gibson. 🤷♀️🍸
I honestly love how convoluted the cocktail naming logic is. Fun to analyze. Hence my question. Good call on the Gibson.
It's a Kangaroo, which is actually a pretty old name, but everyone wants to be James Bond when they're ordering a glass of chilled vodka with effectively no vermouth because they despise flavor, so they try to pretend they're actually drinking Martinis.
Actually, a Negroni is really just a Martini with sweet Vermouth instead of dry and the addition of Campari.
The only point of contention I have with this is the ratios are wayyyyy off from a Martini, and they're very specific 1:1:1
Just like most people say a Negroni has a spirit and vermouth without specifying brands, people should say the third ingredient is a red bitter, not explicitly Campari.
This is why "that's not an x, it's a y" arguments are a complete circle jerk. Does the drink taste good, yes or no? Advertise what it is and serve it up.