🥃 Garibaldi

Garibaldi is an Italian aperitif cocktail of two ingredients: the red bitter Campari and freshly squeezed orange juice. It is built directly in a highball glass with ice and garnished with an orange wedge, without a shaker. The name honours Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the main architects of a united Italy in the 19th century.

Symbolism. According to PUNCH, both ingredients are symbolic: Campari from northern Italy recalls the red shirts of Garibaldi’s volunteers, and the orange stands for Sicily in the south. So two parts of the country that Garibaldi helped unite meet in one glass. Difford’s Guide notes that the cocktail appears on bar menus all over Italy.

Revival. The drink gained wide fame thanks to the bartender Naren Young: in October 2015 he added his version to the menu of the New York bar Dante, and since then it has been the bar’s signature drink. The secret lies in the “fluffy” juice: fresh juice is whipped without ice at high speed until it foams.

Recipe. PUNCH and VinePair give 45 ml Campari and 120 ml fresh orange juice on ice in a highball. Difford’s Guide adds a drop of sugar syrup, first mixes the bitter with half of the juice, and tops up with the rest of the whipped juice. The frothy fresh juice softens the bitterness of the Campari.

Why this matters to you. A Garibaldi can easily be mistaken for juice, but it contains 45 ml of bitter. The sweet orange flavour masks the alcohol, so it is easy to underestimate the number of servings. The WHO reminds us that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.