Hugo Spritz

Novice

The Hugo Spritz is the Alps answering Venice: created in 2005 by Roland Gruber, a bartender in Naturns in South Tyrol, as a lighter alternative to the bitter spritzes ruling the south. Elderflower, prosecco, mint and soda, and the aperitivo hour gone alpine meadow. Gruber's original poured lemon balm syrup, and by his own account he named it Hugo more or less at random after rejecting Otto. The elderflower version conquered within the decade, carried along by the liqueur boom that started in 2007, and it took the name with it. It crossed into Germany and Austria first, then went everywhere prosecco pours. The build is meadow arithmetic. Twenty-five millilitres of elderflower is the spritz-length calibration, floral and present without tipping into pot-pourri; the mint is slapped rather than muddled; prosecco carries and soda lifts. It is the spritz for guests the Aperol bottle intimidates, and the politest aperitif of the summer.

BuiltAperitifSessionableLow-ABVCelebratory

Glassware: Copa Glass

Garnish: Fresh Mint Sprig and Lime Wheel

Ingredients

Serves

Elderflower Liqueur

25ml

The meadow, and twenty-five millilitres is the calibration: the blossom leads louder than its sweetness suggests. Elderflower cordial swaps straight in for the alcohol-free reading.

Prosecco

90ml

The carrier. Cold and brut, which is the spritz family's constant: an extra-dry prosecco reads sweet against the elderflower and tips the whole glass into cordial.

Soda Water

30ml

The lightening splash that keeps the blossom aloft. Thirty millilitres opens the drink out without thinning the prosecco into it.

Instructions

Fill a large wine glass or copa with ice.

Add the elderflower liqueur.

Pour the prosecco, then the soda, gently.

Slap the mint sprig, drop it in with the lime wheel, and stir once.

Expert Tip

The mint is aromatics, not salad. Slap one sprig once between your palms and drop it in: that ruptures enough oil to perfume the glass without breaking a leaf. Muddling releases chlorophyll along with the oils, turns the drink bitter and ragged, and looks like lawn clippings in a wine glass. Fill the glass properly with ice before anything goes in. A big copa with a full charge of cubes keeps the prosecco cold and slows the dilution; a half-filled glass warms within minutes and the spritz goes flat and sweet. Pour the prosecco gently and the soda last, then stir once and stop. Every extra stir costs carbonation, and the lift is what separates a spritz from a glass of sweetened wine.

Flavour Profile

ElderflowerMintSparklingAlpine

Where It Comes From

Roland Gruber built the first one in 2005 at a bar in Naturns, a small town in South Tyrol, in the German-speaking north of Italy. The brief was local: something lighter than the bitter spritzes coming up from the Veneto, for a room that did not much want Campari on a summer evening.

The original used lemon balm syrup, and it travelled about as far as that syrup did. When elderflower liqueur became widely available from 2007 onwards, the drink was rebuilt around it and went everywhere. Gruber has said the name was close to arbitrary, since he considered Otto and settled on Hugo, which is a more honest origin story than most drinks of this age manage.

The Elderflower Calibration

Twenty-five millilitres is the number, and it is smaller than people expect. Elderflower liqueur leads much louder than its sugar content suggests: the blossom is aromatic rather than sweet, and it arrives at the front of the sip regardless of how little is in the glass.

Push it to forty and the drink stops tasting of a meadow and starts tasting of pot-pourri, which is the failure mode of every elderflower drink ever made. Twenty-five gives the flower a clear voice over ninety millilitres of prosecco without ever suggesting a bathroom cabinet.

The Alpine Spritz

Against the Aperol and bitter spritzes made south of the mountains, the Hugo runs floral where they run bitter, and pale where they run orange. That makes it the family's gateway glass: the one accepted by people who have decided they do not like aperitivo, usually on the evidence of a single bad Campari.

It is also the easiest member of the family to make without alcohol. Elderflower cordial replaces the liqueur exactly, and a good sparkling water replaces the prosecco with less loss than the swap usually costs, because the drink was never leaning on the wine for flavour.

The Mint

One sprig, slapped once, dropped in. The slap is not showmanship: it ruptures the oil glands on the surface of the leaves and releases the aromatics you actually want, which reach the drinker's nose before the glass reaches their mouth.

Muddling does something different and worse. It tears the leaf structure and releases chlorophyll along with the oils, which reads green and bitter, and the fragments float. A spritz is a clear drink in a big glass and it should look like one. If the sprig has gone limp in the fridge, use a fresh one, because a tired sprig contributes nothing at all.

How to Serve It

Big glass, big ice, golden hour. The spritz laws apply in full: a wine glass or copa, filled properly with cubes, and everything poured cold.

It batches for a garden better than most sparkling drinks, because the only pre-mixable part is stable. Measure the liqueur into the glasses in advance, keep the prosecco and soda on ice, and top to order rather than making a jug. A lime wheel and the slapped sprig go in last. Made this way it converts prosecco drinkers into cocktail drinkers roughly one sprig at a time.

The Spirit

Elderflower Liqueur

A liqueur made by infusing elderflowers in alcohol and sweetening the result, typically around 20% alcohol. It became so useful so quickly that bartenders nicknamed it ketchup, which was a compliment and a warning at the same time.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented the Hugo Spritz?

Roland Gruber, in Naturns in South Tyrol, in 2005: a lighter alpine answer to the bitter spritzes of the Veneto. His original used lemon balm syrup, and the elderflower version that took over from 2007 kept his name for it.

Why not muddle the mint?

Slapping a sprig ruptures the surface oils and perfumes the glass. Muddling tears the leaves, releases chlorophyll along with the oil, and turns the drink bitter and ragged with fragments floating in it. The Hugo wants aromatics, not salad.

How does it differ from an Aperol Spritz?

By bearing. The Hugo is floral, pale and gentle where the Aperol Spritz is bitter-orange and assertive, though both use the same prosecco-and-soda frame. They are the family's two gateways: one a meadow, the other a sunset.

Can I make it without alcohol?

Easily, and better than most. Elderflower cordial replaces the liqueur exactly, and a good sparkling water replaces the prosecco with less loss than usual, because the drink never depended on the wine for flavour. Keep the mint, the ice and the big glass.

Master the Techniques

Stirring vs Shaking: When to Use Each Technique

Aperol Spritz

The Aperol Spritz became the most ordered cocktail in the world during the 2010s, which was partly a marketing achievement and partly deserved. Built properly it is bright, bitter and genuinely refreshing. Built carelessly it is flat orange squash, and it is built carelessly a great deal. The format is older than the bottle. The spritz tradition comes from the Veneto, where Austrian soldiers under Habsburg rule diluted the strong local wine with water and called it spritzen, from the German for to splash. Bitter liqueurs joined later. Aperol arrived in 1919 and turned out to suit prosecco better than anything else did. The three to two to one ratio of prosecco, Aperol and soda was codified and marketed by Campari Group from the early 2000s, and it is not an arbitrary commercial decision. It is the proportion at which the prosecco still leads, the Aperol seasons without dominating, and the soda keeps the whole thing light.

Spritz al Bitter

Spritz al Bitter is not a recipe so much as an order. Ask for a spritz in Venice and the question that comes back is which bitter, and the answer maps the region: Aperol for the gentle sunset version, Campari for the full argument, Select for the local orthodoxy. Campari is the reading most of the world's bars pour. The structure is fixed regardless of the answer: three parts prosecco, two parts bitter, one part soda, over plenty of ice in a large wine glass. Those proportions have been standard long enough to be printed on things. The soda is the part people skip and it is the part that names the drink. Spritzen is German for to splash, and the usual account is that Habsburg soldiers stationed in the Veneto in the nineteenth century found the local wine stronger than they wanted and asked for it cut with water. The splash stayed after the empire left.

Elderflower Collins

The Elderflower Collins is a Tom Collins with the sugar upgraded to blossom. Gin, lemon and soda are unchanged; twenty millilitres of elderflower liqueur stands where the syrup would, and the whole drink reorganises around it. That is the same single move the Gold Rush makes with honey and the Army & Navy makes with orgeat: replace the neutral sweetener with one that brings character. Elderflower's lychee-and-blossom perfume threads through the gin's botanicals and the lemon's bite, and the soda lifts all three. Nobody owns it. It condensed out of the elderflower boom that followed the launch of the best-known liqueur in 2007: bartenders reached for the Collins template as the obvious frame, and the pairing was standard within about five years before anyone thought to claim it. That is folk repertoire of the modern era, which is a real pedigree even without a name attached to it, and it is how most long drinks were arrived at before anybody kept records.