THE AMERICANO BOLOGNESE
- daniele dalla pola
- Jun 10
- 7 min read
Every city has a cocktail it doesn't know it needs. Bologna, loud, red, excessive, and deeply proud of its produce, deserved something more than a stirred, casual sipper. It deserved a drink with weight, with attitude, with a little heat in the finish.
The Americano is one of the oldest Italian aperitivo cocktails, born in the 1860s at Gaspare Campari's bar in Milan. Originally called the Milano-Torino because of its two signature ingredients, Campari from Milan and sweet vermouth from Turin, it was later renamed the Americano when visiting Americans developed a fondness for the bittersweet drink. It is considered the first known thread connecting traditional Italian aperitivo drinking culture with American bartending.
For nearly a century and a half, the formula barely changed: bitter, vermouth, soda, orange. Stirred. Elegant. Understated. A drink designed to efface itself, to be refreshing rather than memorable.
That was the version I started from. What I wanted to build at Nu Lounge was something else entirely: a drink that tasted unmistakably of Bologna.
"Instead of a standard stirred sipper, the goal was to transform the Americano into a highly structured, bright, and deeply aromatic cocktail, the kind of thing that makes you put the glass down and think."
A DRINK IN MOTION — THE TIMELINE
The Americano Bolognese was never a static spec. It evolved with the bar, with the brands in the room, and with where my own palate was pointing at any given moment. Here is how it moved.
ERA 1 — CIRCA 2005: THE BLUEPRINT
Nu Lounge Bar was founded in December 2000 on Via de' Musei, steps from Piazza Maggiore. Born from the vision of four friends, Davide Cavallari, Daniele Dalla Pola, Elena Esposito, and Maurizio Gerosa, it drew on international experience to create a reference point for aperitivo and after-dinner culture in the center of Bologna.
From the start, the house Americano had its own character: built on Martini Rosso, Martini Bitter, and a fresh orange wedge shaken into the spirits before topping with tonic water rather than flat soda. The tonic brought quinine bitterness and carbonation with a sharper edge. The shaken orange expressed oils and fresh juice directly into the glass. It was recognizably an Americano, and recognizably something more.
Nu Lounge Americano Bolognese, Original Blueprint
(elaborated with Matteo Palladino)
Ingredients:
1 oz Martini Rosso
1 oz Martini Bitter
1 wedge Fresh orange
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
To top Tonic water
Method: Shake the vermouth, bitter, orange wedge, and Angostura vigorously with ice to express the oils and fresh juice. Fine-strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Top with tonic. Garnish with a fresh orange slice.
ERA 2 — CIRCA 2008: THE GINGER REVELATION
This is the version that, for me, cracked the code. Adding fresh ginger juice to the shaken base was a decision that changed the architecture of the entire drink. The ginger's raw heat meets the quinine of the tonic in the finish, and together they completely re-engineer what the Americano does. The dense botanical sweetness of Italian vermouth, which can sometimes feel like it needs dilution more than companionship, now has a counterforce: a spike of fiery spice that lifts the whole structure.
The result bridges the Italian aperitivo tradition with the bolder, more tropical flavor profiles that were becoming the signature of Nu Lounge's bar program. This is the spec I consider the Americano Bolognese in its fullest expression.
Americano Bolognese 2008 ★ SIGNATURE
Ingredients:
1.25 oz Sweet vermouth (Martini Rosso)
0.75 oz Italian bitter (Campari or Martini Bitter)
0.5 oz Fresh ginger juice
1 wedge Fresh orange
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 oz Tonic water
Method: Combine vermouth, bitter, fresh ginger juice, the orange wedge, and Angostura in a shaker with ice. Shake hard—the orange wedge needs to break open against the other ingredients. Fine-strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Top with tonic. Garnish with a long lemon twist or a thin slice of fresh ginger on the rim.
ERA 3 — CIRCA 2014: A FULLY LOCAL IDENTITY
(THE ROSSO ANTICO CHAPTER)
Around 2014, the recipe was featured in Italian trade publications, including Bargiornale, during national bar activations. For this version, the sweet vermouth was swapped for something with deep roots in Emilia-Romagna: Rosso Antico, the historic "Principe degli Aperitivi" born just outside Bologna.
Rosso Antico was created in 1962 at the Distilleria Jean Buton in Bologna. It became the symbol of the Sixties and Seventies, earning its royal title through sheer quality and iconic presence. It is made from five base wines infused with 32 herbs and spices, including three species of Artemisia and Iris Florentina. This gives it notes of woody herbs, roasted coffee, exotic spice, and zesty citrus on the nose, leading to a bittersweet, lightly spiced palate.
Swapping Martini Rosso for Rosso Antico in the Americano Bolognese was a statement: this drink is from this city, made with this city's spirits. The heavier botanical profile of Rosso Antico required the shaken orange wedge and Angostura to work even harder, and it paid off in a darker, richer glass.
Americano Bolognese, Emilian Edition
Ingredients:
1 oz Rosso Antico
1 oz Italian bitter (Bitter Campari)
1 wedge Fresh orange
2 drops Angostura Bitters
To top Tonic water
Method: Shake the Rosso Antico, bitter, orange wedge, and Angostura vigorously with ice. Fine-strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Top with tonic. Crown with a lemon twist.
ERA 4 — CIRCA 2017: THE PREMIUM BACKBONE
Later, the drink appeared in European bar showcases, including Martini Caffè Torino pop-ups in Germany, where the spec adapted a more robust, premium backbone. With Martini's Riserva Speciale Rubino—a vermouth built from Piedmontese Nebbiolo grapes and aged in oak casks—the drink took on extra structure and depth, its tannins providing a beautiful counterpoint to the bitter component.
Americano Bolognese, Caffè Torino
Ingredients:
1 oz Martini Riserva Speciale Rubino
1 oz Martini Bitter
0.5 oz Fresh ginger juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 Orange wedge
2 oz Tonic water
Method: Pour all the ingredients including the orange wedge, except the tonic water. Add ice. Shake, Then pour unstrained into a large Old Fashioned glass. Top with tonic water. Stir gently to integrate. Garnish with an expressed lemon peel.
This movement is quickly gaining serious momentum far beyond the borders of Italy and Spain. The modern aperitivo and its signature serves are rapidly becoming well-known worldwide, driven by exclusive international Caffè Torino pop-ups and high-profile global partnerships. Bartending talent Kevin Osbat (then making waves at Nu Lounge) hit the road to bring these dynamic, low-ABV serves to life at major trade events around the globe. Simultaneously, the sophisticated Italian drinking ritual has taken over the fast lane: these premium vermouth drinks have become the star attraction in the exclusive VIP areas of Martini & Rossi during several Formula 1 Grand Prix weekends, celebrating the brand's iconic sponsorship of the Williams Racing Team.
Previously, the classic aperitif was seen more as a simple appetite stimulant, drunk with family before lunch or dinner. But that has nothing to do with the modern "aperitivo" moment: This is about zest for life, spontaneous and casual togetherness, lively conversations, and unforgettable, authentic moments shared with friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. The room buzzes with voices; greetings and orders fly through the air. You stand or sit as you please, at the bar or at a table, and it can sometimes go late into the evening. And this very special atmosphere is rounded off by enjoying high-quality drinks and excellent food. This is how the new "aperitivo" is celebrated in Italy today—and thanks to MARTINI, now in Berlin too.
WHY THE GINGER SPEC WINS
I've poured all these versions many hundreds of times. The Rosso Antico version is the most local, and the Riserva Rubino version is the most polished, but the 2008 ginger spec is the most complete cocktail.
Here are the mechanics of it. An Americano is a dense drink; the botanicals in the vermouth and the bitterness of Campari are layered, complex, and heavy. Soda water simply dilutes them. Tonic water, however, doesn't just dilute, it adds its own bitter quinine character, which means you're sharpening the drink rather than watering it down. When you shake fresh ginger juice into that equation, you add a third kind of bitterness: a raw, green, fiery one that works in an entirely different register from the wormwood-and-cinchona bitterness of the classic aperitivo build.
The shaken orange wedge is not a garnish. It is a structural component. The oils from the peel, the slight astringency of the pith, and the fresh juice all break open in the shaker and bind with the spirits. You cannot replicate this by squeezing a wedge over the top of the glass. The oils coat the palate and beautifully soften the transition between the intense, bitter midpalate and the long, spiced finish.
"The Americano Bolognese is a drink designed around contrast: Italian aperitivo weight versus tropical heat, aromatic sweetness versus dry quinine bite. Bologna on one side of the glass. The rest of the world on the other."
The ginger version also happens to be the recipe that most honestly reflects what Nu Lounge was as a bar: a tiki bar in an Italian city, reaching into the produce of its own region with one hand and into the tropics with the other. Nu Lounge became the best tiki bar in Italy, and the Americano Bolognese is perhaps the clearest single expression of why that was possible. It's a fully Italian drink, with a philosophy borrowed from somewhere much further away.
MAKE IT YOUR OWN
If you want to try the Americano Bolognese at home, start with the 2008 spec. Use fresh ginger, not syrup, not powder, and not ginger beer. Juice it fresh or grate it and press it through a fine cloth. The fiber of ginger dulls with heat and time; what you want is the raw, bright liquid, the kind that stings the back of the throat before the vermouth smooths everything over.
Shake hard. Don't be precious about it. The orange wedge needs to break. The oils need to leave the peel. Strain clean into your highball glass and top with the best tonic you can find, one that lets the quinine speak rather than hiding behind sweetness.
This is Bologna's aperitivo. It has weight, it has warmth, and it has something a little wild in the finish. That feels exactly right.
Daniele Dalla Pola / Mr. Exotico
