[:en]But what harm did the Spritz do to us?[:]

[:en]We already know what you're thinking: “Spritz? But are you serious? That stuff can't even be called a cocktail." Let's assume for a moment that the detractors of the famous orange blend are right. If this were the case, wouldn't it be appropriate to ask “what is a cocktail?”?

After all, man has been asking questions since the dawn of time: where do we come from? Who we are? Where are we going?

What would the answers be if these questions were applied to the Spritz? In the order:

From what was historically the Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto and which today is simply Veneto.

One of the most consumed cocktails in Italy.

Towards the summer, so let's move on to Martini and Negroni because this year too there will be plenty of Spritz.

We're joking, you know it by now, but this little introduction isn't that far from reality. How many of you can say you have NEVER drank a spritz? Almost none, we bet. Whether you like it or not is obviously another matter.

In any case, we will tell you the (alleged) story of its dark origins. As we were saying, it seems to have been born fortuitously as a simple "extension" of Venetian wines, judged excessively strong by the Austrian soldiers stationed in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto. After all, from what is said, the good soldiers were used mostly to beer, whose alcohol content was and is certainly lower than that of most wines. Therefore, it is not surprising (even if it is terrifying) that in order to withstand the impact they used to add seltzer, which would also have given rise to the very name of the Spritz cocktail, deriving from the German verb "spritzen", "to spray", referring to the seltzer being splashed into the wine glass.

As we know it today, Spritz was born at the end of the 1920s in Venice, precisely, with a recipe that involved combining dry white wine with Aperol and seltzer, strictly in equal parts. Remaining "under the radar" for several decades, the cocktail acquired great popularity in the 1970s and from Veneto it expanded throughout Italy, becoming the aperitif cocktail par excellence and being recognized by the International Bar Association in 2011.

Here is the recipe for a perfect classic Spritz:

1/3 dry white wine (almost always Prosecco)

1/3 Aperol

1/3 Seltz

 

Now what do you think? The story is there, the circulation is not even worth mentioning, the IBA has approved... shall we have a spritz while waiting for the summer?[:]

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