Making a spritz, in the classic style, calls to mind the bacari of Venice, those stand-up bars that sling bittersweet amari with prosecco and soda water in sturdy tumblers. Indeed, the drink originated in Venice, when early 20th-century Austrian soldiers began diluting Venetian wines to lower the alcohol content. Today, in cities around the world, the spritz has once again become a requisite summer beverage, served one by one on lazy afternoons or easily batched for barbecues. They’re great — until they’re boring, which, come late August, is an unfortunate reckoning.
Luckily, bartenders are always one step ahead. Inventive spritzes are now being offered everywhere from Denver to Sydney, springing free from the standard 3:2:1 ratio and the well-worn prosecco-Aperol-soda mix. In London, they’re made with tequila. In Los Angeles, with strawberry beer. For a spritz is infinitely mutable (what doesn’t play well with a float of crisp sparkling wine?) and dependably refreshing, no matter its ingredients. “When it’s super hot, you want bubbles,” says Christine Kang, one of the bartenders behind Lemon’s, a new Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hotel bar dedicated to Italian aperitifs. So, as Labor Day weekend approaches, we asked her and five other cocktail masters to dream up elevated takes on the summer stalwart.
1. The Lemon’s Squeeze, from Lemon’s in Brooklyn
“I was like, we can’t have a place called Lemon’s and not have a bomb lemonade,” says Kang, who developed the drink list for the new, sunshine-yellow rooftop at Williamsburg’s Wythe Hotel alongside Jim Kearns (of New York’s Slowly Shirley). To make her punchy, herbaceous lemon spritz, you need to peel lemons the day before and make a syrup called oleo saccharum, which became popular with bartenders in the mid-1800s, when lemons were seasonal and bars wanted to get as much flavor out of them during the short window they were available. “It’s one of the best ingredients in cocktail making,” Kang says. “Bright and citrusy and fresh.”
-
1½ ounces Plymouth gin
-
½ ounce Luxardo Bitter Bianco
-
1¼ ounces lemon juice
-
1¼ ounces lemon oleo saccharum (recipe follows)
-
1 dash lavender bitters
-
Club soda, to taste
-
Lemon wheels, for garnish
-
Lavender sprig, for garnish
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a wine glass over fresh ice. Top with club soda and stir to mix. Garnish with lemon wheels and lavender sprig.
To make oleo saccharum: In a large bowl, place equal weight lemon peels and white sugar (roughly 1 cup of sugar for the peels of 4 lemons) and toss to coat. Transfer mixture to a zip-top plastic bag. Seal and leave out at room temperature, or on a sunny windowsill, until syrupy and thick, anywhere from a few hours to overnight. Store extra oleo saccharum in airtight container, refrigerated, for up to one week.
2. The Monkey See Monkey Do, from Genuine Liquorette in London
When you add a self-serve spritz counter with six taps to your bar, you have room to experiment. That’s how bartenders at this Fitzrovia bar began playing with tropical flavors. They found, surprisingly, that the peppery notes in Olmeca Altos Plata tequila paired wonderfully with banana liqueur. Briottet Crème de Banane, made from Costa Rican banana pulp, tastes like the just-peeled fruit; Pisang Ambon, out of the Netherlands, balances the banana flavor with herbal notes. It’s also bright green, which means your cocktail will be, too.
-
25 milliliters silver tequila
-
35 milliliters Briottet Crème de Banane banana liqueur
-
10 milliliters Pisang Ambon banana liqueur
-
15 milliliters lime juice
-
1 dash absinthe
-
50 milliliters prosecco
Combine tequila, banana liqueurs, lime juice and absinthe in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a wine glass over ice. Top with prosecco.
3. The Chevalier Spritz, from Bon Temps in Los Angeles
Strawberry beer is the secret at Bon Temps, a new French brasserie housed inside a former ketchup warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. The bar director Mike Lay suspected Fruli, a Belgian wheat beer fermented with juiced strawberries, would bring out the rhubarb flavors of Aperol. And a half-ounce of juice from the Cara Cara, a sweet, pink-fleshed orange, balances out the sweetness without making the drink too sour.
-
2 ounces Fruli strawberry beer (or your brand of choice, preferably made with fresh strawberries)
-
2 ounces dry tonic, such as Three Cents or Fever-Tree
-
2 ounces Aperol
-
½ ounce freshly squeezed Cara Cara orange juice
Fill wine glass with ice. Add ingredients in order listed.
4. The Sekt Spritz, from Superkhana International in Chicago
When opening Superkhana, the chefs Zeeshan Shah and Yoshi Yamada wanted to pair playful Indian food, including a hulking calzone filled with butter chicken, with sparkling wine (“sekt” in German). “I thought, ‘If we’re going to have all of these open bottles, we should build a spritz menu,’” says the beverage director Colleen Malone. And since her bubbly list goes deep, the spritzes do, too. Below, an extra trocken (Germany’s equivalent of extra brut) sparkling Riesling brings a dry finish to Contratto, which Malone chose because it offers a nice middle ground between the sweetness of Aperol and bitterness of Campari.
-
1½ ounces Contratto Aperitif
-
3 ounces dry sparkling Riesling (look for Fitz-Ritter Riesling Extra Trocken Sekt)
-
Orange peel
Fill a rocks glass with large ice cubes. Add Contratto. Add Riesling slowly, to prevent foam. Using a bar spoon, stir briefly and gently to incorporate. Garnish with a big swath of orange peel, squeezing over the top of the drink before inserting with the pith side of the peel against the glass.
5. The Aloe Spritz, from Q House in Denver
When customers at Q House, from the former Momofuku Ssäm Bar sous chef Christopher Lin, seem skeptical of a cocktail with “aloe” in the name, the beverage director Jen Mattioni offers them a taste of the base spirit, Chareau aloe liqueur. “It’s so well-balanced, with cucumber, aloe, musk melon and spearmint flavors,” she says. “Really refreshing.” Even more so when paired with the crisp botanicals in a London dry gin. She rounds out the drink with a zingy ginger green-tea simple syrup, made easily by steeping tea leaves in sugar water.
-
1 ounce Chareau aloe liqueur
-
1 ounce London dry gin
-
½ ounce lemon juice
-
½ ounce ginger green-tea simple syrup (recipe follows)
-
Club soda, to taste
-
Candied ginger, for garnish
Add liqueur, gin, lemon juice and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a Collins glass over ice. Top with club soda. Garnish with candied ginger, if desired.
To make ginger green-tea simple syrup: In a large saucepan, mix 16 ounces water with 16 ounces sugar and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Steep 6 bags ginger green tea in simmering water for length of time directed on package. Remove tea bags and let syrup cool. Store extra syrup in airtight container, refrigerated, for up to one week.
6. The Blushing Lady, from Acre Eatery in Sydney
Acre takes the concept of “farm-to-table” to extremes: Pocket City Farms, a nonprofit network of urban farms, runs a 13,000-square-foot garden next door, from which they source produce for dishes and drinks. To invigorate a classic vermouth spritz, the bar manager Mark Henderson reached for just-picked blood orange, pomegranate, cucumber and lemon verbena. If your local options aren’t as robust, prioritize sourcing organic blood orange and pomegranate — bright and bold, Henderson says they’re the heroes of the drink. He makes blood-orange soda in house, but you can use a commercial version from San Pellegrino.
-
45 milliliters Martini Rosso sweet vermouth
-
90 milliliters prosecco
-
90 milliliters blood-orange soda
-
For garnish: Blood orange slice, pomegranate slice, cucumber slice, rosemary sprig and lemon verbena sprig
Fill wine glass with ice. Combine vermouth, prosecco and soda. Garnish with all other ingredients, or those on hand.
