Campari

Also known as “Campari bitters”,“bitter Campari”. Proprietary celebrated bittersweet Italian beverage/aperitif bitters manufactured since 1904, but not really at export volume until the 1920s. Flavored with citrus and Alpine herbs in a neutral spirit base. Originally colored with carmine. Campari began as an adaptation of ersatz Stoughton’s Bitters, one of many homemade products Gaspare Campari served at his Milanese cafe starting around the 1867. Gaspare’s bitters became a local hit, but industrialized production would wait until the 20th Century, under Gaspare’s son Davide. Campari was notably reformulated in 2006, resulting in a slight change in flavor and color. Moreover, Campari is bottled at different ABVs in different markets, ranging between 20.5% and 28.5%. Campari is particularly noted for its use in the Negroni Cocktail and Americano, among others. Red bitter aperitif liqueur is a genre of strongly citrus-forward bittersweet Northern Italian liqueur, aromatized and embittered with numerous Alpine botanicals, filtered, and in most cases, tinted red with carmine or substitute red dye. Rhubarb is a popular botanical ingredient, and the core bittering agent can be gentian and/or wormwood. Chinchona also appears in some examples. The genre is dominated by Campari and, today, Aperol as well, but many other examples exist. The general concept seems to have emerged in the mid-19th Century, but with no widespread commercial availability until the 1910s or 1920s. The genre appears to have been inspired by recipes for ersatz Stoughton’s Bitters, the proprietary 17th Century stomach bitters, reinterpreted through 19th Century Italian cafe culture. Recently, a de facto convention has emerged where lower ABV products (~18%) in this genre are referred to as “aperitivo” and higher ABV products (~24.0%) are referred to as “bitter”. This convention is not held to consistently, but explains some product naming.