Limoncello Spritz
The Limoncello Spritz is a digestivo promoted to the aperitivo hour. Limoncello was made to be drunk ice-cold in small glasses after dinner, and lengthening it with prosecco and soda moves it to the other end of the meal entirely. The spritz template is fixed: a liqueur, a sparkling wine, a splash of soda, over ice in a large glass. Most versions put something bitter in the liqueur position. This one puts something sweet there instead, which is why the soda is not optional here in the way it very nearly is in an Aperol Spritz. It is the only thing standing between the drink and syrup. It spread through Italian summers in the 2010s and outward from there, and it was argued about by people who felt limoncello belonged after dinner. They lost. What it does well is give a table that finds bitterness a chore something to drink at the same hour as everyone else, and it tastes exactly like the coast it comes from.
Glassware: Copa Glass
Garnish: Lemon Wheel and Fresh Mint Sprig
Ingredients
50ml
Freezer-cold, which is not a preference. At around 28 per cent it will not freeze solid, and cold is what keeps the sugar reading as crisp rather than as syrup.
90ml
Brut rather than extra dry, which despite the name is the sweeter of the two. The limoncello is already carrying all the sugar this drink can take.
30ml
Structural here rather than decorative. In a bitter spritz the soda rounds things off; against a sweet liqueur it is the only thing keeping the drink from settling.
Instructions
Fill a large wine glass with cubed ice.
Add the limoncello straight from the freezer.
Pour the prosecco, then the soda water.
Stir once gently.
Garnish with a lemon wheel and a slapped mint sprig.
Expert Tip
Keep the limoncello in the freezer, not the fridge. At around 28 per cent it will not freeze solid, and it pours thick and cold, which is how it is meant to arrive. A room-temperature limoncello reads as sweet and slightly cloying the moment it hits the glass, and the ice cannot catch up with it. Use a brut prosecco. Extra dry prosecco, which despite the name is the sweeter of the two, stacks sugar on sugar and the drink stops being a spritz. If extra dry is all you have, add more soda. Do not skip the soda. In an Aperol Spritz it is a rounding-off; here it is structural, and thirty millilitres is what keeps the whole thing from settling on the tongue.
Behind the Limoncello Spritz
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Limoncello is made across southern Italy and is most associated with the Amalfi coast and the Sorrentine peninsula, where the lemons are large, thick-skinned and heavily perfumed. It is a simple thing: lemon zest steeped in neutral spirit, then sweetened. No juice, no pulp, just the oil from the peel.
Traditionally it is a digestivo, poured from the freezer into small chilled glasses after a meal. The spritz version is recent, spreading through the 2010s as producers looked past that single occasion, and it is the youngest member of the spritz family by a wide margin.
Why the Soda Is Not Optional
A spritz is a template: one part liqueur, two parts sparkling wine, a splash of soda, ice, large glass. In the Aperol and Campari versions the liqueur is bitter, so the soda is doing modest work: it lengthens the drink and softens the edge slightly.
Here the liqueur is the sweetest thing in the family, and the soda is the only counterweight in the glass. There is no bitterness and no acidity beyond what the prosecco brings. Leave it out and the drink is pleasant for two mouthfuls and cloying by the fourth. Thirty millilitres does not sound like much, and it is the difference between those two outcomes.
The Cold
Limoncello is served from the freezer for a reason that is not just tradition. At around 28 per cent alcohol it stays liquid at freezer temperature but becomes noticeably viscous, and cold suppresses the perception of sweetness quite dramatically.
The same bottle at room temperature and at minus eighteen tastes like two different products: one syrupy and heavy, one sharp and full of zest oil. In a drink already fighting its own sugar content, that is not a detail you can skip and then make up for with more ice.
Where It Sits in the Family
The spritz family has a bitter orthodoxy and a growing number of exceptions. The Aperol and Select versions are the standard. The Hugo puts elderflower in the liqueur position and tastes of meadow. This one takes the citrus corner.
Its usefulness is social rather than technical. Bitterness is genuinely divisive, and a table with a Negroni drinker and someone who dislikes Campari has a problem at six o'clock. This solves it without anyone having to drink something they are pretending to enjoy.
How to Serve It
A large wine glass filled properly with ice, limoncello straight from the freezer, prosecco, then soda, one gentle stir.
A lemon wheel for the fresh acid and a slapped mint sprig if you have one. Both are doing a job: the wheel corrects the sweetness sip by sip and the mint gives the nose something that is not sugar.
Make it at home
The Spirit
LimoncelloThe Amalfi and Sorrento coasts’ house liqueur: lemon zest steeped in neutral spirit and met with sugar, with no juice involved at any point. Served from the freezer, where it pours thick and arctic rather than syrupy.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Limoncello Spritz?
Why does the limoncello need to be frozen?
Is it too sweet?
Can I use champagne instead of prosecco?
You Might Also Like
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.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits