Ah, Negroni Week.
The Best Week of the Year.
Christmas for Campari lovers.
Imbibe started this homage to the classic cocktail back in 2013 as a way to raise money for charity. Since then, bars across the USA have stepped up to the plate to deliver a week’s worth of inventive cocktails, volunteer days, and fierce competitions.
The History of Negroni started 100 years ago in Florence. The story goes that Count Negroni ordered an Americano (no, not the coffee variety- it’s equal parts soda water, Campari, and sweet vermouth), but wanted a boozier version of gin in place of the soda water.
His bartender, Fosco Scarselli, obliged and served it with an orange peel to signify the difference.
From there, the classic cocktail became more and more popular as word spread. The Negroni family capitalized on the success, creating a factory to push ready-made versions to the Italian market.
Fun fact: Count Negroni was a rodeo cowboy in America at some point.
You’re welcome for that conversation starter. Now can Negronis be the official rodeo drink of Oklahoma?
To celebrate Negroni Week for the first time since starting Bevographer, I knew I had to go big.
So, I asked some of my favorite people to join me on a bar crawl through Film Row and Midtown to kick the week off right.
Special shout out to my instahomies:
Ranking my favorite Negroni is incredibly hard. I only wanted to rank based on what was available to the public for the week. Thus, I did not judge based on the competition held on Sunday night, just to clarify for any industry folk.
Without further ado, here are the winners of the inaugural Bevographer Negroni Week Awards!
Best Classic Negroni: Barkeep Supply
Best Barrel-Aged Negroni: The Winston
Best Floral Negroni: Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails
Most Inventive Negroni: Stitch “It’s a Fruit”
Best Tiki-Style Negroni: Ludivine
Best Fruit-based cocktail: O Bar
Negronis Best Served as a Flight: The Kitchen at Commonplace
Best Sour-style Negroni: Bar Arbolada
Best O.G. “Americano” Style Negroni: Red Rooster
Cheers to everyone who made this a fantastic week for charity!
Who was the winner in your book? Sound off in the comments!