Limoncello Spritz

Hugo Spritz

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.

Sgroppino

The Sgroppino is Venice untying dinner's knot: lemon sorbet whisked with prosecco and a thread of vodka into a froth you can drink. It is the Veneto's palate cleanser between courses and its gentlest goodbye after them, and the dialect name means precisely that loosening. The method is the recipe. The sorbet is softened for a couple of minutes and whisked smooth, the vodka goes through as a binder, and the prosecco is folded in stages until the texture pours like sea foam. A blender does not produce this: the violence splits what the whisk marries, and what comes out is slush rather than silk. Venice uses a bowl, a fork and a wrist. It sits in the spritz family's dessert corner, and it is the correct answer to a summer table that wants pudding and an aperitivo's manners at the same time. Nothing else in the repertoire does both jobs in one glass, which is why Venice has never felt the need to replace it.

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.