Campari & Aperol Are Just The Beginning: We Raided Campari Office's Spritz Bar, Tried Every Bitter Aperitivo Worth Knowing & Learnt To Mix Every Spritz Known To Man
Campari is the internationally familiar face of pre-dinner drinking – the vivid red bitter poured with soda, mixed into a Negroni or Americano, or lengthened with Prosecco in a spritz.
Before it became closely associated with Caffè Campari in Milan and Milanese aperitivo culture, it was first concocted by liquorist Gaspare Campari in 1860. Gaspare had a modest goal: he simply wanted to create a memorable “house special” drink for his own café, Caffè dell’Amicizia ("Friendship Coffee"), that could not be purchased anywhere else. Inspired by the refined botanical cordials being imported from Holland at the time, he formulated the bitter liqueur, and then chose a colour that would stand out memorably on his café table: a brilliant luminous crimson red.
Yet within that world, Campari is only just the beginning in a kaleidoscopic universe of sweeter, gentler or more herbacious choices.
This was what we discovered when we recently attended a Campari Group guided tasting led by Brand Ambassador Bystrik Uko who took us through the histories, recipes and classic serves of six iconic aperitivos.
Campari is only the beginning in pre-dinner drinks
The broadest relevant term here is aperitif – referring to any drink enjoyed before a meal. Campari and its brighter cousin, Aperol, fall within the Italian tradition of aperitivo, which in Italy not only refers to said drinks category but the essential post-workday ritual of making time in the early evening to sit down with friends before dinner.
Campari and Aperol (and more that we’ll get to) are strictly speaking bitter liqueurs – distilled alcohol flavoured with syrup, herbs, roots and various fruit ingredients such as citrus peel. We will see that within this family, the experience can be quite different beyond just the “bitter” dimension.
To understand the context that paved the way to the arrival of Campari, another essential aperitivo to know about is aromatised wine – with vermouth being the most important of them. These are strong tasting wines flavoured with herbs, spices and fruits, its history dating back to the pre-Renaissance, when herbal wines were made for medicinal purposes. As beautiful spices such as cinnamon and cloves reached Europe for the first time, the Renaissances recipes were given a new life.
Vermouth – an aromatised and fortified wine made with bitter wormwood – was the favourite Turin aperitif during the mid-1800s. This was the setting that set the stage for Campari’s arrival: people already had a habit of ordering a bitter-tasting drink before dinner.
Historically, aperitivi were poured and enjoyed on their own – vermouth was often and still is drunk by itself or over a serving of ice.
Spritzing up Veneto under Austrian rule
During the same era that gave birth to Campari, several Italian polities were held under strict, oppressive rule by the Habsburgs of the Austrian Empire. The spritz was around this time developed in Venice – in the northern Italian Veneto region.
St Mark's Basilica in Venice, depicted during the Austrian rule of Veneto. (Painted by Vincenzo Chilone, 1815)
A prominent explanation for how the spritz came about was that Austrian soldiers stationed in Veneto found the local wines – like the exceptionally syrupy Malvasia – too rich and heavy for their liking. The soldiers would often ask tavern keepers for water to dilute it. And thus, we have the first rudimentary spritz, linked to the German spritzen (to spray with water). At this point, the only known spritz was just wine with water. Funnily enough, if one were to visit old-school taverns in Venice or Trieste today and ask for a “spritz”, owners will still serve the same colourless mix of white wine and water.
The practice of spritzing spread across the region towards the turn of the 19th century. As carbonation technology arrived, bartenders traded still well water for pressurized soda water. The still spritz evolved into the bubbly Spritz Bianco – a wine and soda spritz.
Finally came the cocktail era of the Bitter Spritz in the 1920s. Unlike high-end formal hotel bars of Milan or London where bartenders served the wealthy, Veneto had a richer culture of bartenders serving the mass market in neighborhood taverns that served cheap house white wine and salty tavern snacks. It became natural for Venetian bartenders to make cheap wine taste better by assembling various combinations of wine, water and bitter liqueur. During this time, Aperol was launched in Padua (a city just an hour’s train ride from Venice). Local bartenders did exactly what the Venetians were doing, and Aperol Spritz was born.
The modern spritz cocktail follows an easy ratio – 3:2:1. This means 3 ounces of Prosecco (Italian sparkling white), 2 ounces of the selected aperitivo, and 1 ounce of soda water.
Over the 20th century, the Italian bartender saw an ever-growing range of choices in bitter liqueurs, from an artichoke-flavoured amaro (Cynar) and even a non-alcoholic aperitivo (Crodino).
Less bitter to more bitter: Mondoro Hugo Spritz (floral); Sarti Spritz (fruity); Aperol Spritz (bittersweet); Crodino non-alcoholic spritz (0.0% bittersweet); Cynar Spritz (herbal); Campari Spritz (bitter).
Before ourselves is a lineup of these 6 icons of aperitivo bitters and countless possibilities in cocktail and spritz-making. Bystrik gave us a deeper dive into each of these fascinating liqueurs and the cocktails they could be made with, from the lightest and most floral Mondoro, to the richer Cynar and the memorably bitter Campari.
Aperol: more bittersweet than conventionally bitter
Amongst the world’s bestselling bitter liqueurs, Aperol is technically a bitter but made with balance in mind, built around an accessible mid-way between sweetness and bitterness, leading with orange peels and a supporting herb and rooty bitterness. Campari Group describes this as more bittersweet than conventionally bitter. At 11%, it is also the lowest strength of the lineup of alcoholic aperitivos.
As mentioned, Aperol was created in 1919 in the city of Padua, and immediately featured heavily in Veneto’s drinks scene. Brothers Luigi and Silvio Barbieri spent seven years developing it after inheriting their father Giuseppe’s liqueur business before presenting Aperol at the Padua International Fair in 1919.
The recipe is a secret, but the company identifies orange peel, herbs and roots, with gentian root and cinchona among its known ingredients.
When Aperol was first launched in Veneto, the bars in the region were already undergoing a Bitter Spritz Renaissance. The familiar and immensely Instagrammable Aperol Spritz has a much longer history than we might have guessed.
Aperol Cocktail Recipe: How to make the refreshing bittersweet Aperol Spritz
For the measured Aperol Spritz, fill an Aperol Spritz glass or large wine glass with ice. Follow the standard spritz-making ratio of 3:2:1 designed to prime the drink with a precise level of sweetness and acceptable bitterness. Pour 90 ml Prosecco first, followed by 60 ml Aperol and 30 ml soda water. Stir once from bottom to top with a bar spoon, then add an orange slice.
According to Bystrik, Prosecco supplies the wine flavour and bubbles; Aperol brings citrus, sweetness and a low herbal bitterness; soda lengthens both. He then professionally slotted the orange slice right behind the Aperol logo on the glass, a small service detail intended to keep the name visible through the glass.
A guest asked whether it was possible to create a respectable Aperol Spritz when no Prosecco was available. We’re recommended any other dry sparkling wines with a similar profile – ideally one with not too much sweetness.
In my glass, orange zest first arrives, followed by a light herbal aroma and a faint touch of vanilla cream. The orange and citrus-led sweetness was juicy and clear and never syrupy. A slightly pithy and woody edge balances the impression of sweetness. Amongst serious cocktails made from serious bitters, this tastes neither especially sweet nor aggressively bitter, which explains why this is an absolute crowd favourite over the past century.
Campari: the uncompromising royalty of bitters
If Aperol sits at the balanced middle of our bitterness spectrum, Campari sits at the bitter end. The 25% ABV crimson Italian bitter was the strongest of the six drinks before us. In terms of taste profile, again orange peels may arrive first, but it is quickly joined by deep warm spices, dry herbs and a very firm rooty bitterness. As far as “serious bitters” go as a drinks category, Campari is the deliberately uncompromisingly bitter choice.
The crimson stuff was first concocted by Gaspare Campari in Novara in 1860, before he set up Caffè Campari in Milan in 1867 and became inextricable to the city’s vibrant aperitivo culture. Its arrival made sense in a northern Italian drinking culture already accustomed to vermouth. Campari gave that pre-dinner bitterness a vivid new form that could immediately be recognised from across a room simply by the deep red glass on the table.
Historically, that red pigment came from cochineal, a crimson dye made from dried and crushed scale insects. The modern Campari has updated the recipe in 2006. The crimson Campari theme nevertheless remained central to its identity, extending from its cocktails into decades of art, fashion and advertising.
Camparino was then opened in 1915 by Gaspare’s son, Davide, as a younger sibling bar to the original Caffè with an elaborate Art Nouveau interior. As part of Davide’s imaginative promotional strategy, the sibling bar came with a cellar-fed system that sent chilled carbonated water up to the bar for Campari and soda. This helped Davide popularize the Campari Soda serve and cement Campari within Milan’s casual aperitivo culture.
Another enduring design object arrived in 1932, when Davide commissioned Futurist artist Fortunato Depero to create the label-free, inverted-cone bottle for the ready-mixed Campari Soda.
That visual confidence is matched by Campari’s place in the pantheon of cocktail-making ingredients. Without Campari, you cannot make the modern bartending world’s most-ordered classic cocktail – the Negroni.
The Negroni’s fascinating origin can be directly traced back to a Gaspare Campari-created predecessor called the Mi-To (or Milano-Torino) created in Caffè Campari. The Mi-To is widely regarded as the “Book of Genesis” for modern Italian cocktails – the source whence sprang an entire family of classics such as the Americano, the Negroni, Boulevardier, Junglebird and the Negroni Sbagliato.
The Americano which came after the Mi-To, is simply cut with one additional part of soda water. Its exact origin story remains subject to debate, but there is one straightforward account for how it apparently got its name. Tourists often found the Mi-To too strong or too bitter, therefore bartenders at Caffè Campari decided to water it down with some soda. When the US officially entered its Prohibition era and Americans began flooding Italy and ordering this serve, the fitting Americano name stuck.
The Negroni, which is essentially an amped-up Americano, was developed in Florence in 1919. By then, the Americano had already become a very popular serve throughout Italian bars. The standard origin story attributes its creation to a flamboyant aristocrat and adventurer Count Camillo Negroni, who asked a bartender to strengthen his Americano by replacing soda with gin. Equal parts Campari, gin and sweet vermouth, the Negroni is short, strong and bitter, with the vermouth softening the Campari’s edges and the gin stretching its botanical frame.
The little Mi-To family tree continued to expand some fifty years on, with the brighter Negroni Sbagliato (literally translating to "Mistaken Negroni") created in the 1970s when Milanese bartender Mirko Stocchetto accidentally grabbed a bottle of sparkling wine instead of gin. Swap the gin for American whiskey and you get the Boulevardier (1927 Paris); or use mezcal for a Mezcal Negroni. One simple change could move the same bitter centre into so many different registers.
Southeast Asian bars have their very own Campari classic in the famous Jungle Bird. The legendary Tiki drink was created by Jeffrey Ong at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in 1973. It consists of Campari, rum with pineapple, fresh lime and sugar for a rich tropical sweetness that rounds off the Campari bitterness.
Campari Cocktail Recipe: How to make the bold Campari Spritz
For the Campari Spritz, fill a Campari Spritz glass or large wine glass with ice. Keep the familiar 3:2:1 structure: 90 ml Prosecco, 60 ml Campari, then 30 ml soda water. Stir once from bottom to top and garnish with an orange slice.
Bystrik preferred orange to lemon because lemon reads tangier on the nose, while the oils from orange peel give Campari a rounder citrus counterpoint. In my glass, the Campari’s firm bitterness is retained against the Prosecco which simply added some lift. It opened with orange peel and a trace of red fruit before immediately turning herbal, spicy and dry. Notably, the finish is clean, herbal-bitter, with bitterness persisting much, much longer than in the Aperol Spritz.
Campari Cocktail Recipe: How to make a stripped-back Campari Soda
The classic Campari Soda is much simpler to make. Fill a highball glass with ice, pour in 45 ml Campari and top with 120 ml chilled soda water. Stir gently once and add an orange wedge.
Bystrik called this the purest introduction to Campari. Without Prosecco, the bitter was exposed: bitter orange, liquorice, aromatic herbs and warm spice, pulled slightly more taut by cold carbonation.
Sarti Rosa: tropical fruit with bitterness dialled down
Sarti Rosa moves sharply away from the bitter end of the spectrum. This aperitivo is new to Singapore and the wider region, and makes a case for a highly accessible hot-weather, tropical fruit-first cocktail.
This 14% neon pink Italian aperitivo leads with juicy Sicilian blood orange, mango and passion fruit, putting juicy tropical fruit and sweet-and-sour freshness way ahead of any bitterness. On the tasting map it is even less bitter than Aperol and above only Mondoro, making it the obvious choice for someone who wants a brighter more tropical spritz without the stern bitter finish.
Sarti Rosa was first launched in 2022 as a modern tribute to the historic Casa Luigi Sarti & Figli, a renowned Bologna liqueur maker known for creative, innovative, and highly distinctive Italian liqueurs and spirits. Sarti Rosa follows a contemporary drinker’s preferences. Its blood-orange, mango and passion-fruit profile is aimed at a younger, spritz-drinking audience: vivid, easy to mix and immediately identified through its bright pink colour and tropical profile.
Sarti Cocktail Recipe: How to make the fruit-forward Sarti Spritz
Fill a large wine glass to the brim with ice. Pour 90 ml Prosecco, 60 ml Sarti Rosa and 30 ml soda water in the same 3:2:1 ratio, then garnish with a lime slice. The switch from orange to lime is intuitive because a sharper lift balances the drink that already really fruity as it is.
In my glass, this feels like a really refreshing spiked fruit punch, leading with golden tropical notes - ripe mangoes and passion fruit aromas. There’s certainly sweetness and juiciness but also a light tartness for balance. It also feels fuller and denser in texture than the Aperol Spritz, with almost none of the bitterness of either the Campari or Aperol spritzes, and none of the medicinal herbs.
Sarti Cocktail Recipe: How to make a bright Sarti Lemon Soda
The Sarti Rosa is also enjoyed in a highball-style serve. For Sarti Lemon Soda, fill a wine glass with ice, add 60 ml Sarti Rosa and top with 120 ml lemon soda. Stir once and garnish with a lime slice. To create the lemon soda, Bystrik recommended combining the juice of one halve of a lemon (15 ml to 20 ml) with soda water to cut the sweetness without overwhelming acidity.
In the glass it is significantly more citrusy. Lemon and grapefruit first with some tropical fruits following behind. The finish is clean with bright acidity, gentle sweetness and a dry citrus tail.
Mondoro: sweet, floral, soft elderflowers
Mondoro occupies the gentlest position on the bitterness spectrum. Aperol balances orange and bitterness, Campari pushes orange and bitterness to the front, Sarti favours tropical fruit, and Mondoro turns the format towards mint and bright white florals.
The 14% Italian aperitivo is based on an aromatic infusion of elderflower blossoms with other secret botanicals. It produces the most floral, softly sweet and least bitter drink of the tasting.
The Mondoro name has long appeared on Mondoro Asti, a sweet sparkling wine made from Moscato grapes that has distinctive floral and fruity muscat notes. The Mondoro Aperitivo is designed to heighten those same qualities in liqueur form, carrying freshness, flowers, fruit and an elegant lightness into a Hugo Spritz.
The cocktail is credited to bartender Roland Gruber, who created it at the Sanzeno bar in northern Italy’s alpine town of Naturno, South Tyrol, in 2005. It is made with Prosecco, soda, elderflower liqueur and mint.
Interestingly, the Hugo Spritz was created as something of an anti-Aperol Spritz. Gruber was looking to offer patrons at his bar a lighter, crisper and more floral alternative that would match the refereshing, lightly herbaceous vibe of the surrounding Italian Alps. The drink became an overnight sensation on social media and quickly spread across the border into Austria and Germany where Bystrik says people drink it “like water”.
With the Hugo Spritz came the general rise in demand for elderflower liqueurs in cocktail bars. The Mondoro Aperitivo was created in 2025 in response to this demand.
Mondoro Cocktail Recipe: How to make the soft, floral Mondoro Hugo Spritz
Fill a large wine glass with ice. Add 90 ml Prosecco, followed by 60 ml Mondoro and 30 ml soda water – in the same 3:2:1 ratio as the other spritzes. For garnish, add a sprig of mint to reinforce the drink’s cool floral and herbal register.
The pale gold drink smelled of elderflowers, honey, fresh chamomile, with some ripe stone fruit rising through the bubbles. On the palate it has a gentle honeyed sweetness with a prominent citrus brightness. The finish was clean and brief.
Of everything on the table, this is the furthest from a conventional bitter and the easiest recommendation for someone looking for a floral and fragrant spritz.
Cynar: the artichoke amaro hiding in plain sight
Cynar is the vegetal outlier among the six drinks on the table. It is a 16.5% ABV classic amaro-style bitter, designed to be drunk after a meal (rather than before, as most aperitivos are), and made from a secret infusion of 13 herbs and plants led by artichoke leaves.
Venetian entrepreneur Angelo Dalle Molle first launched Cynar in Padua in 1952, the same city in which Aperol had appeared three decades earlier. Following a highly successful advertising campaign in the ‘60s, Cynar became deeply lodged in popular memory that older Italians still readily recognise the bottle today.
Despite its initial success in Italy through the 1960s and 1970s, Cynar struggled to appeal to international audiences. Besides strong competition posed by Aperol and Campari, a key reason is that the bottles labels prominently feature an artichoke. The global consumer often found the idea of an “artichoke liqueur” unappealing and odd. After Campari Group acquired the brand in the 1990s, Cynar began to experience a more promising revival as bartenders began to appreciate its bittersweet caramel-like profile with distinct vegetal notes, using it to add roundness and herbal depth to a Negroni or a Manhattan variation. Cynar has even found purchase in Argentine drinks culture. The Cynar con pomelo is a popular long drink in the country, made with roughly three parts Cynar to seven parts grapefruit soda.
(Source: Cynar Argentina)
Before dinner, Cynar can be enjoyed as an aperitif in a spritz, or simply lengthened with soda. And as it is earthy and herbal as classic amaros are, after dinner, Cynar can be poured neat. This is the traditional amaro role: bitter herbs, roots and a little sweetness at the end of a meal.
Cynar Cocktail Recipe: How to make the earthy, herbal Cynar Spritz
Fill a large wine glass with ice. Follow the 3:2:1 structure, pouring 90 ml Prosecco first, then 60 ml Cynar and 30 ml soda water. Stir once from bottom to top with a bar spoon and garnish with an orange slice.
In my glass, the first aroma was savoury and vegetal, followed by dry roots and dark herbs. Rounded on the palate. Soft caramelised citrus and dried fruit, kind of like a denser more herbaceous lemon-flavoured cola, with a lightly oaky savoury quality. The finish is woody and herbal and more long-lasting. Cynar is supposed to be the second-most bitter drink on the table, but compared to Campari, this does not seem half as bitter.
Crodino: a real bitter aperitivo built without alcohol
Crodino is a single-serve, lightly sparkling Italian non-alcoholic aperitivo developed in the 1960s. It took its name from Crodo, the Piedmont spa town where it was created, making it one of Italy’s first non-alcoholic aperitifs.
Its complexity comes from 15 herbs, spices and roots. Cardamom, cloves, coriander and nutmeg are among the disclosed ingredients, and the botanical extract rests for up to six months before the drink is blended and bottled. This aperitivo is pre-carbonated and almost always bottled in 100ml pocket-sized servings.
On the bitterness spectrum, Crodino sits around the middle, at roughly the same bittersweet point as Aperol. It is more bitter than Sarti and Mondoro, but gentler than Cynar and Campari. Alcohol-free does not automatically mean sweet or simple.
Crodino is classically served just by itself over ice, or with a small splash of soda water. It is also sometimes used to make lower-ABV cocktails, like the Sixteen Rum that originates from Piedmont, which features rum, sweet vermouth and Crodino.
Crodino Cocktail Recipe: How to prepare the Crodino non-alcoholic Spritz
Fill a large wine glass with ice, pour in one bottle of Crodino, add a splash of soda water and garnish with an orange slice. There is no need for the 3:2:1 ratio here because a serving of Crodino is complete on its own.
In my glass it was brilliant golden yellow, with bitter orange rising first and warm spice close behind. It gives a bright sweetness but fairly quickly gives way coriander-like spice, herbs and a faint woody note, while the effervescence keeps it fresh and dry. The moderate bitterness and aromatics provide most of the depth on the palate.
Where do we start with aperitivos?
It’s a dazzling array of choices when it comes to aperitivos. As a long-time lover of bitters, my personal favourite has been anything made with Campari. Yet the Cynar Spritz which I tasted for the first time came in as a close second for its depth and complexity. This is closely followed by the Sarti Rosa Spritz which doesn’t come close in bitterness but delighted me with its surprisingly tropical mango aromas that I’d find in thick hazy IPAs.
The ideal way to discover your preference is to taste all of them in a super flight like we did (if you’re in Singapore, check out Bystrik's upcoming Campari Spritz Masterclasses!).
Otherwise, I’d recommend starting with a drink that is as bitter as you’re comfortable going. Mondoro sits on the softest and most floral end with no bitterness whatsoever; Sarti brings tropical fruits and barely any bitterness; Aperol lands in the bittersweet middle; Crodino is also bittersweet but more spiced; Cynar is earthy, caramelly and vegetal; and Campari is the undisputed royalty of bitters.
All of them can be enjoyable by themselves over ice, but most universally accessible in the same 3:2:1 spritz made with three parts sparkling wine, two parts aperitivo and one part soda, over plenty of ice.
Go forth and have fun spritzing!
@CharsiuCharlie
