Not Your Usual Italian Cocktails: 3 Festive Recipes

Elizabeth Helman Minchilli

We're cocktail people. Which isn't always an easy thing to be in a wine-loving, Mediterranean country like Italy. Most of the places where we meet friends for drinks offer Prosecco, wine, and ... wine. While the craft beer movement is going strong here, cocktails still lag far behind. If you ask the waiter, there is always the same lineup of Italian classics: Negroni, Americano, Campari and soda. But ask for anything as exotic as a gin and tonic or—God forbid—a Martini, and you are heading into unknown territory.

Which means we entertain a lot at home. In fact, neighbors have been known to ring our doorbell at around seven, with an innocent "Just wanted to say hi."

Well, I'm always happy to whip up a cocktail, and never more so than at holiday time. And even though I do live in non-cocktail country, I like to use local ingredients, and there are plenty. So, my gift to you: some Italy-inspired cocktails for your holiday entertaining and enjoyment.

Clementina

Sometimes I want a Manhattan, but lately I've been craving something a tiny bit sweeter. Here is my version of an Old-Fashioned, making use of Martini & Rossi's new Rosato vermouth (which is a gorgeous shade of pink) and clementines, which always add sunshine.

    • 2 1/2 ounce bourbon
    • 1/2 ounce Martini Rosato
    • 1/2 ounce sugar syrup
    • 1/4 clementine
    • orange bitters

Cut the clementine quarter in half.

Place one piece in a rocks glass, along with the sugar syrup and bitters. Muddle well, so that you release both the juice and the essential oils from the skin of the fruit (the fresher the better, and of course organic).

Pour in bourbon and vermouth. Stir.

Fill glass with ice and garnish with the remaining piece of clementine, squeezing slightly.

Pallina di Natale

I love the mixture of egg whites with Campari, which takes the edge off the bitter, making it luscious and smooth. Serve in a round wine glass for the Pallina di Natale (Christmas ornament) effect.

    • 2 ounces Campari
    • 1 ounce gin
    • 1/2 ounce Lillet
    • 1 egg white

Pour Campari, gin, Lillet, and egg white into a cocktail shaker. Shake hard for about 30 seconds. Open shaker and add ice. Give it a few more shakes to chill, and strain into stemmed, round-bellied wine glass.

Campari Punch

Serves 10

I'm heading to my friend Rachel's house for New Year's and naturally my contribution is the cocktail course. Rather than stand there mixing single drinks, I've decided to go for punch, which is not only pretty and festive, but much easier on the little black dress.

    • 2 cups chilled Campari
    • 1 cup chilled grappa
    • 4 cups chilled red current juice
    • 1 bottle chilled Prosecco
    • 1/3 cup pomegranate molasses
    • 1 lemon, thinly sliced
    • 1 orange, thinly sliced

Combine pomegranate molasses in a small bowl, and mix with grappa until completely dissolved. Add this, and the rest of ingredients, to a large punch bowl. Stir gently. Add one large block of ice to chill. If you'd like, you can freeze some red currents and lemon slices into the ice block, for a pretty look. And while I'm able to get fantastic red current juice at the local farmers' market, I think this punch would work with pomegranate or even raspberry juice (as long as they aren't too sweet).

About the Author

Elizabeth Helman Minchilli is a Rome-based writer who contributes to over 40 publications including Food & Wine, Town & Country, the International Herald Tribune, and Architectural Digest.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”