Americano, Vermouth and Bitter
Reader ratingsTurin vermouth sharpened with a spoonful of bitter, a few drops of cognac and Angostura, stirred and served short with lemon peel: the earliest printed Americano, from an Italian bar guide of about 1920.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
- Prep
- Total
Mazzon’s Americano, vermouth and bitter served short in a stemmed glass with lemon peel, beside a mixing jug.
The story behind the recipe
The oldest Americano in print that we know of is a short, stirred glass of sweet vermouth with no soda in it, a long way from today’s Campari and soda. It comes from Guida del Barman Mixer, an undated Italian bar guide by Mazzon Ferruccio, placed around 1920, where it sits among the miscellaneous recipes. Turin vermouth makes almost all of it. A teaspoon of bitter sharpens it, cognac and Angostura go in by the drop, and lemon peel finishes it in a cocktail glass. No Campari is named.
A bartender’s own bitter
The bitter is Mazzon’s. He calls it Bitter F. R. M., probably for his own initials, and prints its recipe further on in the book, a six-week steeping of quassia bark, licorice, cardamom, cinnamon, Roman camomile, dried orange peel and Greek raisins in ten liters of spirit. On the next page he bottles a house Americano twenty liters at a time. His preface says he had worked as head waiter in hotels abroad, mostly as a barman in England.
Three origin stories attach to the long modern drink, none of them backed by a document of its time. One traces it to the Milano-Torino, Campari from Milan with vermouth from Turin, served at Gaspare Campari’s café from the 1860s; another names American visitors during Prohibition; a third, the boxer Primo Carnera. Mazzon’s own title page points somewhere plainer. His book is subtitled a collection of American and international recipes, so his “Americano” may simply have meant American-style: that is our reading.
Read more about this recipe
Campari for F. R. M.
Nobody sells Bitter F. R. M., so Campari, a Milanese red bitter, stands in here. One teaspoon in a 2 fl oz glass of vermouth only sharpens the wine, and the drink comes to about 13% ABV.
Campari was still a rarity in the bar books of 1920s Paris: Barflies and Cocktails (1927) names it only twice, once in the bourbon Boulevardier. Mazzon’s short glass closes the vermouth line that The Bartenders Who Wrote Down the Classic Cocktails follows from the Manhattan of 1884.
Recipe makes: 1 drink
Ingredients
For 1 drink. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink.
- Sweet vermouth2 fl oz
- Campari1 tsp
- Cognac5 drops
- Aromatic bitters4 drops
- Strip lemon peel1
- Ice cubes
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 fl oz sweet vermouth
- 1 tsp Campari
- 5 drops cognac
- 4 drops aromatic bitters
- 1 strip lemon peel
- ice cubes
Equipment
Mixing glass
Bar spoon
Strainer
Cocktail glass
Instructions
Chill a cocktail glass in the freezer or with ice water.
Put three or four ice cubes in a mixing glass and add the sweet vermouth, Campari, cognac and aromatic bitters.
Stir with a bar spoon for about 20 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass and squeeze the lemon peel over the top, skin side down.
Nutrition
110calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for sweet dessert wine (for the vermouth), plus a teaspoon of Campari.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scale by whole drinks; the drops of cognac and bitters go in per glass.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Mazzon’s dessert-wine glass is not sized in the book; 2 fl oz (about 60 ml) is our estimate. A drop from a bitters bottle is enough; for the cognac, a few drops from a teaspoon will do.
For today’s Americano, a modern recipe: pour 1 fl oz Campari and 1 fl oz sweet vermouth over ice in a tumbler, top with 3 fl oz soda water, stir once and add an orange slice or lemon peel. With a 25% Campari it comes to about 8% ABV.
To make it without alcohol, simmer 3/4 cup water with the zest of 1 orange, 1 cinnamon stick, 3 crushed cardamom pods, a pinch of dried camomile and 2 tbsp raisins for 10 minutes, steep 30 minutes, strain, and stir in 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tsp lemon juice. Pour 1 fl oz of this syrup and 1 fl oz unsweetened red grape juice over ice, top with 3 fl oz soda water and add an orange slice. This is a modern version. A bottled alcohol-free red bitter aperitif labeled 0.0% can stand in; one labeled only “alcohol-free” may still hold up to 0.5%.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Mazzon Ferruccio, Guida del Barman Mixer: raccolta di ricette americane ed internazionali (Italy, undated, about 1920), p. 98; house bitter p. 120
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Cocktails & Mixed Drinks
- Region
- Italian
- Era
- Jazz Age
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Base
- Wine
- Difficulty
- Easy