Katie and I made it our life’s mission during quarantine to craft the perfect Negroni Bianco recipe. After buying and trying tonsss of different vermouths and bitters, and a “mild” buzz, we did it! 👏🏼👏🏼 The irony now being that this is more of a Negroni Viola because of this awesome periwinkle Empress Gin I just got, but with the same taste, I’d take a fun purple drink over a clear one any day! 💜🍸
Popular in British Columbia, Empress 1908 Gin is a newbie on the US market. It’s naturally colored with butterfly pea blossom (no artificial coloring used) and gets its distinct flavor profile from 8 natural botanicals: butterfly pea blossom, fairmont empress tea, juniper, grapefruit peel, coriander seed, cinnamon bark, rose petal, and ginger root. If this sounds good to you, you’re right!
Like all Negroni style cocktails you need 1 part gin, 1 part bitters and 1 part vermouth. So we played and played and found a few variations, some sweeter and some more bitter but anyway I’m really excited to share this one with you today!!
Ingredients
1oz Empress Gin (or any other gin really, but I’d recommend something not toooo flavorful like Tanquerey, Bulldog or Beefeater)
1oz Vermouth Blanc
1oz Luxardo Bitter Bianco
Grapefruit for garnish
(For my fellow cocktail geeks, the Luxardo replaces the Campari, and the Vermouth Blanc replaces the sweet vermouth of a traditional Negroni)
Process:
- Pour all ingredients into a cocktail stirrer over ice and stir until very cold (when glass starts to condensate). TBH, you can also mix directly in your glass with ice but I find best to do separate.
- Strain mixture into rocks glass over 1 large ice cube
- Garnish with a grapefruit peel (extra credit: take grapefruit peel and hold at 45° angle above glass with outer peel facing away from you towards the top of cocktail. And then pinch the peel together horizontally so the citrus oils release onto the top of your drink).
For me, a negroni is a year round cocktail. Unlike margaritas or old fashioneds, I enjoy one any time, any where—it’s 100% my go-to drink. But nowwww, I’m freaking OBSESSED with the negroni bianco, or should I say negroni “summer edition.” It’s lighter in both taste and appearance and a bit sweeter, which makes it easier to drink on a hot summer afternoon (comparative to it’s blood red counterpart).
I have tons more knowledge on vermouth or bitter substitutions from our big taste test but fear no one is as nerdy as me with their cocktail assembly haha so I’m ended here…comment below if you’re curious though, happy to spread my wisdom 🙃
