Americano

The elegant ancestor of the Negroni, this lighter aperitivo represents the union of Milan and Turin in liquid form.

The Americano is one of the oldest named Italian cocktails still in regular production, created at the Caffè Campari in Milan in the 1860s. Gaspare Campari had developed his now-iconic bitter liqueur around 1860 and opened the Caffè Campari in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II — the magnificent iron-and-glass arcade built between 1865 and 1877 that became Milan's most fashionable gathering place — where he served the drink that would become the Americano as the Milano-Torino: Campari from Milan combined with Punt e Mes sweet vermouth from Turin. Soda water was added later to create a lighter, longer serve. The name Americano is widely attributed to the influx of American tourists during Prohibition, who ordered the drink with such frequency in Italian bars that the Italians began calling it by the nationality of its most enthusiastic customers. The Americano holds a specific distinction in literary history: it is the very first drink that James Bond orders in any Ian Fleming novel. In Casino Royale (1953), Fleming's debut Bond book, 007 sits at the Hermitage bar and orders an Americano while waiting for his contacts Mathis and Vesper Lynd. Bond returns to the drink in From Russia With Love (1957) and in the short story From a View to a Kill (published in the 1960 collection For Your Eyes Only), where Fleming has Bond reflect that in a French café, an Americano is the only reasonable order, always specified with Perrier because expensive soda is the cheapest way to improve a poor drink. It is an IBA Official Cocktail.