Negroni Week is in its seventh year as an international celebration of the famous Italian cocktail of Campari, gin and red vermouth. For seven days, thousands of bars around the world will be championing the nearly 100-year-old cocktail and raising money for charitable causes.
Negroni Week was launched by Imbibe magazine in 2013 to celebrate one of the world’s great drinks, invented by Count Camillo Negroni in Florence in 1919 as a variation on the Americano substituting gin for soda. The International Bartenders Association (IBA) lists Campari as an official ingredient of the Negroni, and thus, there is no Negroni without Campari.
During Negroni Week, participating venues will be donating a portion of the sales of Negroni cocktails and related items to a charity of their choice. At the end of Negroni Week, Campari Australia will match the donation to the nominated charity of Australia’s highest donating individual on-premise venue (to a maximum amount of $5,000). Last year’s event involved 7,700 venues in 60 countries and succeeded in raising $1.5 million.
So how can you take part? Head down to one of the following top bars and order a Negroni, of course.
In these days of no bookings/order at the bar, it’s refreshing to experience seriously polished service, and that’s what you get at the Everleigh. The crew here possess serious bar chops, so if you care about what goes in your glass go for a seat up near the bar so you can catch the action as they make you a world class Negroni during Negroni Week.
Heartbreaker isn’t the kind of place you go to when you’ve got an early morning the next day. You will get swept up in the rock’n’roll, flowing shots, beer chasers and party-hard spirit the venue has cultivated over the last few years. Throw in that late-night New York-style slice and a top-notch Negroni, and you’re in for some trouble with a whole lot of staying power, especially when it's Negroni Week.
At the QT Hotel’s rooftop bar the outdoor seats out on the deck are harder to lock down than tickets to a secret Adele gig, but if you’re willing to shell out a guaranteed $85 per person for 12-50 friends you can book a space. Soon you’ll be joined by city workers who file in to catch the last rays of the day over a Negroni.
Richmond's Prince Alfred is the ultimate local pub, ticking all the boxes that a solid neighbourhood watering hole should. You can get a dinner special every day of the week, and the Prince Alfred also loves your doggo as much as you do, with the beer garden now fully accommodating four-legged friends. They also make Negronis – check out their skills during Negroni Week.
During Negroni Week, get down to South Yarra's Imperial Hotel for a hearty, seasonal menu including outstanding pizza. Cocktails include a storming Negroni.
East meets West at Berlin, where the luxurious and opulent East Germany (white banquettes, crystal curtains, low lighting and throbbing beats) crashes loudly into the West – a punk mix of black-steel bunk beds, '80s tabletop video games and scratchy woollen blankets. The cocktails include Negronis, naturally, and there's no better time to try theirs than during Negroni Week.
At this huge city pub, four levels surround a central atrium that lets natural light permeate from above, and also leads down to the basement cocktail bar. Down there the cocktails are a hell of a lot better than what you’d find in most pubs – get them to mix you a Negroni during Negroni Week and see what we mean.
TNE is named after the Prohibition, with a lot of nods back to New York. TNE thinks of their drinks as pre-Prohibition, but we like to think of them as old trends coming new again. Their four-week, bottle-aged Nearly a Negroni is easy drinking and sweeter than what you would expect.
Dapper bar staff wear jaunty caps and suspenders, hand-cutting ice to order and happily chipping in with drink suggestions. Pre-Prohibition cocktails are the house specialty, such as the Negroni, and if you can't order one during Negroni Week then when can you?
Even when it's not Negroni Week Neptune is bringing its A-game with a whole host of quality seafood in a can – the brilliant way the Spanish have done it since the invention of the can opener – and a menu that sticks to the fishy brief without becoming its slave. Upstairs, the cocktail saloon features banquette seating. Settle in and order the Negroni.
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