News from Italy
Time travel of the Aperitif from Hippocrates to the present:
best time of the day
by Alessandro Romano
A collective ritual born in ancient Rome, the Aperitif is a purely Italian ceremony celebrating sociability and good living. It is an indispensable ritual in the late afternoon, usually between 6 and 20 and on Fridays, after work or on the weekends. The most enjoyable moment of the day is aperitif time…
How did a moment of relaxation and leisure with friends arise that we could not do without? We want to experience the ancient history of the Aperitif and its journey from ancient Rome to the present. We take our glasses and go on a trip in history with Hippocrates, Carpano, Martini, Ramazzotti and Campari…
From the Latin aperitivus (opening), aperitif means a drink that can open the stomach by stimulating the feeling of hunger in the 4th century BC. The Greek physician Hippocrates discovered that to quench the appetite of his patients, it was enough to give them a rather bitter-tasting drink based on white wine, dittany flowers, wormwood and mother-of-pearl, with incredible beneficial effects.
This concoction, later named vinum Hippocrates, was handed down from century to century until it reached the hands of medieval herbalists. And it is not these components that arouse the feeling of hunger, but the bitter taste they release, which stimulates appetite much more than sweet. And that’s why even today, the leading drinks we love to drink at snack time are often bitter, a classic bitter aftertaste! And geographical discoveries explicitly targeted the East, and the arrival of expensive spices gave birth to the so-called “snack wine” that became increasingly flavoured.
But the “modern” history of the aperitif as we know it today as a social moment began several centuries later, precisely in 1786, in Turin. In a small liquor store, manager Antonio Benedetto Carpano created what later became the perfect aperitif: Vermouth, a delicious wine flavoured with cinchona that would soon conquer Italy’s king Vittorio Emanuele II.
The latter is named Vermouth con China Carpano, later Punt e Mes (due to the extra “one-half” bitterness), the aperitif, a small glass to drink before. Table, to eat with more pleasure. Carpano’s drink is spread throughout Savoy, accompanied by appetisers based on typical Piedmontese products such as cheeses, cured meats and the inevitable bagna càuda.
Also, Martini and Rossi winemakers in Piedmont create the Martini Bianco (a Vermouth based on Moscato and aromatic herbs left to soften). Meanwhile, the aperitif’s success grew and, of course, spread to other Italian cities. In Milan, which has always been an avant-garde city, work was being done on a drink that could somehow “compete” with the Piedmontese. This is how Ausano Ramazzotti, a Bolognese pharmacist who moved to Milan, created the first non-wine-based aperitif liqueur. Made from the maceration and infusion of 33 herbs, roots and spices, it is Amaro Ramazzotti.
Gaspari Campari bought a cafe in Novara in Piedmont, where he perfected the secret recipe for the so-called bitterness due to its particularly bitter taste. But later, he moved his restaurant to Milan, to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II at the corner of the Piazza Duomo, and served his liquor for digestion, not after meals. Started offering. And the story of Bitter Campari was born.
As a result, the foundations were laid for a tradition that spread throughout Italy, transforming many new drinks and aperitifs, from appetite-quenching wine to Spritz, Negroni and other more elaborate drinks, into a proper ritual.
Entrepreneur Vinicio Valdo started a new practice in Milan in the 1990s that combined drinks and buffets. He offered free meals to customers so they could keep drinking. Thus the aperitif “alla Milanese” was born, and from there, we probably arrived at today’s famous “Americana”, where the aperitif is then transformed into a valid substitute for dinner or lunch. The original one.
In short, the snack has evolved over the centuries, even replacing its original function: “open” the stomach and prepare it for the next meal. Today is a “moment” of social gathering and grand celebration…
