Canon Félix Kir, a French Résistance hero and later mayor of Dijon, lent his name to this simple wine cocktail traditionally made with the rustic Burgundian variety called aligoté. When Champagne is used instead of white wine, the drink becomes a kir royale. Don’t be tempted to stint on the amount of crème de cassis—Burgundy’s famed blackcurrant liqueur—to yield a faint pink drink; both common and royal iterations should properly have a dark rosy hue.

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Everyone should have a house spritz, whose proportions are known by heart and ingredients are stocked easily, like this one from Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau of PUNCH. This recipe first appeared in our June/July 2015 issue with Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau’s story On The Spritz.

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Raspberry-Rhubarb Spritz

Italicus Spritz

Strawberry Spritz

Garden Spritz

Cappelletti Spritz

Punch House Spritz

Moto Guzzi

Rosé All Day

Everything’s Coming Up Rosé

Spritz

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Long before the debate about whether or not the Aperol spritz is a good drink, the spritz was just a glass of watered down wine. The tradition traces back to 19th century Austro-Hungarian-occupied Veneto, where soldiers found the local sparkling wine to be too strong for their palates, and in response, diluted it with ein spritzen of water. Over time, the practice evolved to include soda water, enabling spritz drinkers to bring the region’s still wines into the mix, and eventually bitters.

Aperol came onto the scene in 1919, and after decades of building a loyal following in Italy and beyond, the brand developed its own version of a spritz, made with three parts Cinzano prosecco, two parts Aperol, and one part soda. Following a serious marketing push in the early 2000s (which is ongoing today), the drink’s popularity is at an all-time high.

Objectively, the Aperol spritz is a delicious, balanced drink combining the aperitivo liqueur’s bracing bitterness with prosecco’s lightly sweet bubbles. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for experimentation and innovation in the spritz category. The basic template, a brilliant combination of acidity, herbaceousness, bitterness, and effervescence, has become a playground for bartenders across the country.

Here are six fresh takes on the spritz that are sure to satisfy, whether you follow the recipes to the letter or use them as inspiration for your own iterations. If you’re ready to go beyond Aperol, pick up a few lesser-known bottles at your local liquor store, and get ready to spritz all season long.

Cappelletti Spritz

San Diego’s Raised by Wolves, a cocktail bar hidden inside a spirits shop, has made waves since opening, both for its drinks and its entrance that requires guests to come in through a revolving false fireplace. This light, bright spritz calls for the Italian wine-based Cappelletti Aperitivo, lychee liqueur, prosecco, and soda, and is a breeze to make at home—just the thing for your next cocktail party. The sweet tropical fruit notes play well with the bitterness of the Cappelletti, making for easy drinking.

Garden Spritz

Award-winning bartender Emily Yett heads up the drink program at Primrose in Las Vegas, and her affinity for low-ABV cocktails makes way for some playful options like this Garden Spritz. The dynamic duo of Salers, a bittersweet French gentian apéritif, and ultra-floral, chardonnay-based Contratto bianco vermouth serves as the base of this drink. A splash each of Prosecco and soda adds the requisite fizziness. It’s an incredibly easy cocktail to replicate at home, and an ideal one for entertaining.

Raspberry-Rhubarb Spritz

At moody, elegant Death & Co. Denver, a New York City import, the extensive cocktail menu features a handful of low- and no-ABV options, including this fruity spritz. It has a lot going on in the glass—a gin base is teamed with homemade raspberry syrup, Campari, vermouth, rhubarb liqueur, citrus, and soda—but all the components work together harmoniously, yielding a drink that’s as elegantly complex as it is easy on the eyes. Bonus: the raspberry syrup recipe yields plenty of leftovers for drizzling on everything from ice cream to pound cake.

Italicus Spritz

For those with a penchant for ultra-botanical flavor profiles, this one’s for you. Peppery, aromatic gin meets Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto, an Italian liqueur made with rose petals and bergamot, in this refreshing spritz tied together with the faintest hint of sea salt. Hailing from RPM Italian in Chicago, the cocktail is complex enough to impress guests yet easy enough to concoct at home on the regular.

At Auburn in Los Angeles, bar manager Israel Mejia mirrors the kitchen’s “no-rules” philosophy with an elevated yet informal cocktail program. A base of Bonal Gentiane, a wine-based French apéritif infused with gentian, quinine, and herbs and botanicals plucked from the Grande Chartreuse Mountains in the Alps, is paired with a fellow French spirit, Calvados, made from the apples of Normandy. Rhubarb liqueur, raspberry vinegar, and sparkling wine add sweetness, acidity, and effervescence, resulting in a well-rounded, perfectly tart drink.

Strawberry Spritz

Old-world glamour—accented with a quirky, Wes Anderson-esque touch—awaits at Candy Bar inside Detroit’s Siren Hotel. In this frothy, pastel-pink spritz-fizz hybrid, bartender Marlowe Johnson combines gin, citrus, fresh strawberry cordial, and coconut milk. Prosecco bridges the gap between the classic spritz tradition and cocktail culture’s new wave. Reminiscent of a boozy strawberry egg cream, this sweet, bubbly drink would make an excellent solo treat at home or a delightful dessert at your next retro dinner party.

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Serving inventive drinks to a cocktail-savvy clientele at its outposts in New York, Paris, and London, Experimental Cocktail Club has taken on an enormous challenge in opening its fourth location on the Spanish island of Ibiza, the land of vodka and Red Bull. But its expert mixologists are up to the task: One of the more exceptional offerings is a spin on the classic Italian Aperol spritz that uses an Aperol infused with vanilla.

MAKES 1 COCKTAIL

• 1 vanilla bean, split
• 1 (750-ml.) bottle of Aperol
• 2 oz. coconut water
• 1 oz. dry vermouth
• 1 oz. fresh grapefruit juice
• 1 oz. fresh lime juice
• Cava, chilled, to finish
• Shaved coconut, to top

Place vanilla bean in bottle of Aperol and close lid; let sit 1 week. Stir coconut water, 1½ oz. infused Aperol, dry vermouth, and fresh grapefruit and lime juices in an ice-filled shaker; strain into an ice-filled wine glass. Top with chilled cava; garnish with shaved coconut.

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Spritzes are the cocktail world’s rumpled linen button-down: unfussy warm-weather favorites with Italian style to spare. More a method than a kind of drink, spritzing was, as the mythos goes, born in Hapsburg-occupied northern Italy in the 19th century. It was there that Austrian soldiers introduced the practice of diluting the region’s wines with a squirt (or spritz) of water to make them more pleasing to their Riesling-trained palates. Today, Italians knock back the wine-based effervescent cocktails—chief among them, prosecco tinted orange-red with the bittersweet liqueur Aperol—during the pre-dinner aperitivo hour. In America, the fatuous white wine spritzer appeared as a sort of halfhearted diet fad in the 1980s, but has since been reimagined as a chic prelude to eating or a softer alternative to heavier-hitting drinks. Whipped up with just a few ingredients, the spritz has a Technicolor genius that lies in its I-woke-up-like-this simplicity. Make your base in a large batch and set it out in a pitcher alongside a bubbly mixer for guests to add as they please. The long, lean drinks will shepherd you through the golden evening hours with ease.

Best Ways to Add Bubbles

PROSECCO
Its clean, light, fruit-forward flavors make prosecco the ideal candidate for mixing. Bisol, Adami, and Nino Franco all produce widely available, high-quality versions.

SODA WATER
Maximum sparkle is key, and, for that, Canada Dry’s aggressive bubbles do the job. If you have a SodaStream, the spritz is your oyster: Carbonate your water to the highest level, and then carbonate it again for a little extra oomph.

THE ALTERNATIVES
Although prosecco or soda water is traditionally what puts the spritz in a spritz, anything with a little CO₂ will do the trick.

Everything’s Coming Up Rosé

Rules of the Spritz

Don’t sweat the measurements. The easygoing spritz is improvisational (and forgiving) by nature.

Keep it bitter. Bitterness sparks appetite—the point of a spritz. Choose an aperitivo that is boldly bitter (Campari, Cynar) or more mellow (Cocchi Americano, Aperol, Cappelletti).

The more bubbles, the better. If your spritz loses its sparkle, what’s the point? Add another splash of soda, prosecco, or tonic whenever things are feeling flat.

Give it body. A spritz should be light on its feet but should also have viscosity. Use fruit liqueurs (such as Giffard) or syrups to add complexity and weight.

Beware of getting spritz-faced. They go down easily. So do as the Italians do and take yours with little nibbles.

Spritz: Italy’s Most Iconic Aperitivo Cocktail, with Recipes by Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau is available at amazon.com.

Moto Guzzi

Rosé All Day

Punch House Spritz

Everything’s Coming Up Rosé

Lady Stoneheart

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As the “Golden Age of Cocktails” started to wind down, palates began to favor lighter bodied serves – influenced in large part by the emergence of gin as the preferred cocktailing spirit. At the same time, Cognac and brandy, the base of iconic serves such as the Sazerac and Brandy Crusta, were put to use in cocktails that could keep pace with the demand for drinks that were light and quaffable. Enter the French 75.  

A sort of elevated highball, you can think of this classic drink as the mimosa’s elder, more elegant sister. A vibrant pairing of citrus, aged eau de vie, and Champagne, this drink signified luxury when it was invented at the turn of the 20th century. A Phylloxera epidemic had recently decimated France’s wine industry, so at the time both of the beverage’s alcoholic components were relatively expensive and difficult to obtain. 

In recent years, this old favorite has returned to the bar scene, ushered in by the trade’s growing appreciation for wine- and grape-based distillates, as well as the contemporary bar-goer’s taste for lighter, more sessionable serves. The classic French 75 recipe is simple enough to be enjoyed casually, but it’s also a serious cocktail that’s particularly well suited to marking celebratory moments, offering the drinker the best of both worlds.

Note: While some cocktail historians—Dave Wondrich included—believe that the French 75 cocktail was originally made with Cognac, there are numerous alternative versions published between 1920 and 1940 that call for gin. Your choice of spirit can be determined by personal preference, or by the season, using lighter botanical gin in the spring and summer and richer Cognac fall and winter.

Simple Syrup

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Amaro made with a grassy mountain honey adds depth to prosecco in this refined brunch drink, which first appeared in our Jan/Feb 2014 SAVEUR 100 issue with the article Amari.

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The recipe for this cardamom-accented bittersweet prosecco drink comes from bartender Paul McGee of RPM Italian restaurant in Chicago; it first appeared in the iPad edition of our December 2013 issue with the article Bubblicious.

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Cambridge mainstay Fitzbillies has always been one of my favorite stops when I’m in England. I look forward to the reliable tea and Chelsea buns they’re famous for, but on my most recent visit I noticed that the university town fixture has somehow changed—newer, fresher, bigger, brighter. I soon learned that Fitzbillies has, in fact, enjoyed a recent growth spurt, thanks to husband and wife team Tim Hayward and Alison Wright, who took over in 2011 and added an imaginative dinner menu with the help of London chef Rosie Sykes.

When I sat down to dinner, I was greeted with a basket of cheese straws and the new house cocktail, the rhubarb fizz, a compelling combination of rhubarb syrup and sparkling wine. Spicy and nuanced, I asked chef Sykes to confide the syrup’s ingredients. “Cardamom and vanilla,” she said. “I’ve been on a bit of a cardamom kick lately.” She infuses additional flavor into the syrup by simmering the rhubarb in a spicy ginger beer.

Now that I’m back home, and with one of the first edible harbingers of warm weather finally showing up at my local farmer’s market, I know what I’ll be drinking for the next few weeks.

See the recipe for Rhubarb Fizz »

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