Vodka & Blood Orange Spritz
A spritz stripped back to two ingredients, which exposes how much of a normal spritz is carried by the bitter liqueur rather than by anything else. Take the Aperol out and put blood orange soda in its place and you get a drink that is fruitier, considerably softer, and far less alcoholic — around four parts soda to one of vodka, which puts it well into afternoon territory. Blood orange is the reason it holds up. It is not simply a sweeter orange: there is a berry-ish, faintly raspberry note underneath the citrus and a bitterness in the finish that ordinary orange soda does not have, and that bitterness is doing the job Aperol would otherwise do. Vodka is the right spirit precisely because it argues with nothing. Serve it in a wine glass over a lot of ice with a slice of orange, and treat it as what it is — an easy drink rather than a serious one.
Glassware: Wine Glass
Garnish: Orange Slice
Ingredients
200ml
Blood orange rather than plain orange matters here — there is a berry note and a genuine bitterness in the finish that ordinary orange soda lacks, and that bitterness is standing in for the liqueur a spritz would normally have.
50ml
Neutral on purpose. The soda is carrying every flavour in the glass and gin would add juniper to a drink that has no use for it.
Fill the glass
Cubed and plenty. A spritz is meant to be drunk cold and slowly, and an underfilled glass is warm before it is half finished.
Instructions
Fill a wine glass with cubed ice.
Pour in the blood orange soda.
Add the vodka.
Stir once from the bottom.
Garnish with a slice of orange.
Source: the producer's own published serve (Fever-Tree). Last checked 22 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Use a wine glass, not a highball. It is not affectation — the wider bowl gives the citrus aromatics somewhere to collect, and a spritz drunk from a narrow glass loses most of its nose. It also takes more ice, which this drink wants. Pour the soda first and the vodka after. Blood orange soda is the only carbonated thing in the glass and there is nothing else to mask it going flat. If you want it closer to a proper spritz, add 25ml of Aperol and drop the soda to 150ml. That gives you the bitterness back without turning it into a different drink, and it is the better version for serving before food rather than during an afternoon.
Behind the Vodka & Blood Orange Spritz
Flavour Profile
Where the Spritz Comes From
The spritz began in the Veneto in the nineteenth century, when Austrian soldiers stationed in northern Italy found the local wine stronger than they wanted and asked for it to be cut with water — spritzen, to splash. That is the whole origin of the name.
Soda replaced still water as it became available, and the bitter liqueur arrived later still, with Select in Venice and then Aperol from Padua in 1919. The version most people now think of as the spritz is the most recent part of the story rather than the original.
This one goes back the other way. It is closer in spirit to the early version: something long, cold and deliberately weakened.
What the Bitterness Is Doing
Remove Aperol from a spritz and what you lose is not really the flavour — it is the structure. Bitterness stops a fruit drink from reading as squash, and without something doing that job the whole thing turns into orangeade with vodka in it.
Blood orange carries its own bitterness in the pith and peel, which is why this works with plain soda where an ordinary orange one would not. It is a smaller bitterness than Aperol’s and it arrives earlier, but it is enough to hold the shape.
Blood Orange Is Not Just Sweeter
The red colour comes from anthocyanins, the same pigment family that colours raspberries and blackcurrants, and they bring flavour as well as colour. That is the berry note people notice and struggle to place.
Practically, it means the drink tastes of more than one fruit while containing only one. In a two-ingredient build, that is worth a great deal.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a real spritz without Aperol?
How strong is it?
Can I use prosecco as well?
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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.
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.
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.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Dan Freeman