1 1/2 ounces Campari
1 1/2 ounces sweet vermouth
Soda water, chilled, to top
Garnish: orange twist
Fill a highball glass with ice, then add the Campari and sweet vermouth. Top with the soda water and stir gently to combine.
Garnish with an orange twist.
The Americano was created by Gaspare Campari, the actual creator of Campari. He opened his own bar in Milan in the 1860s and started selling cocktails made with his namesake aperitif. One of the most popular was called a Milano-Torino. It was literally just equal parts Campari, which was made in Milan, and Italian sweet vermouth, which was made in Torino. The cocktail became especially popular with American tourists, and eventually he added some soda water to give it some effervescence, and he named it an Americano.
Some say that this was especially popular during prohibition when Americans on vacation outside of the US were drinking everything in sight while they had the chance.
The Americano also happened to be the first cocktail ever mentioned in any of the James Bond novels, so after “Casino Royale’s” release in 1953, the Americano blew up here too.
Another fun fact about the Americano, it was actually the precursor to the Negroni. Legend has it that in Florence in the early 1900s an Italian Count named Camillo Negroni asked a bartender to tweak his Americano by swapping out the soda water with gin, and he liked it so much that he named the cocktail after himself.