Drink
Why Aperol Spritz is so popular – and how to mix the drink properly
Hardly any drink is more popular than this one: Aperol Spritz
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Anyone who orders an Aperol Spritz on a pleasant summer evening is in good company. A drink that everyone can agree on.
The sun is reflected in the round glasses filled with an orange-yellow liquid, fogged up by the ice mist, fine bubbles rise. The color of the drink is reminiscent of the perfect sunset. Inside is a slice of orange and a straw from which, it seems, the whole city is sipping to quench its summer thirst – with Aperol Spritz.
Gianfranco Gurrieri runs the Panineria d’artista on Poelchaukamp in Hamburg-Winterhude with his partner Mireen Thimm. There are almost as many bridges here as Italian restaurants and bars, which is why locals refer to it as Little Venice. Gurrieri, a native Sicilian, knows exactly how popular the drink is. He serves up to 200 glasses of Aperol Spritz on a sunny Friday evening: “Our customers are crazy about Aperol Spritz. It embodies a way of life, Italy, Dolce Vita.”
Aperol: The recipe has not changed since 1919
Aperol Spritz is the trendiest drink par excellence. No other drink shapes the cityscape of German cafés, bars and restaurants as much as the bitter aperitif, which was first served over 100 years ago and became a hit overnight. Today, the cocktail is one of the best-selling drinks in the world. According to Statista, a total of around 9.6 million units of Aperol, each with a volume of 9 liters, were sold worldwide in 2023. This makes it the best-selling bitter in the world. The success of Aperol is thanks to two brothers from Italy: Silvio and Luigi Barbiere were the ones who developed Aperol exclusively for an international trade fair in Padua in 1919. The recipe has not changed since then.
A completely unpretentious story, but that is precisely where its magic lies. Aperol, which today belongs to the Campari Group, is a distillate made from rhubarb, cinchona bark, yellow gentian, bitter orange and aromatic herbs. The aroma: bittersweet. It is made into the classic Aperol Spritz with Prosecco, soda water and ice. A slice of orange rounds off the drink. Not at Gurrieri: “We only use Prosecco with Aperol – no soda water – and lots of ice, ice with a hole in it,” says the operator of the aperitivo bar. “It’s like food: if the ingredients are bad, the food doesn’t taste good. The same goes for Aperol Spritz. You need a good Prosecco, dry, very sparkling, otherwise it doesn’t taste good.”
Wonderful for day drinking
The name Aperol is derived from the French word “aperitif”. The spirit is said to stimulate the appetite, which is why the drink is also ideal as a daytime drink before a meal. The “New York Magazine” once headlined that the Spritz was completely solid and wonderfully suited to “day drinking”. And indeed: the drink is not lacking in down-to-earthness. It is not too complicated, it is not the best drink, but it is unexciting.
The spritz, also known as Sprizz or Veneziano, probably goes back to the Austrian drink “Gespritzer”. This is the name given to spritzers made from wine and mineral water. The northern Italians simply borrowed the term for their own purposes. Just as the Germans have made the drink their own: the Aperölchen, as we affectionately call it here, is almost a German drink.
© Teaser image: Getty images / Ekaterina Senyutina
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Be a little Italian
For Germans, the drink embodies a feeling of an Italian holiday – perhaps every sip of the bittersweet drink satisfies the longing to be a little bit Italian themselves. Every year, new variants try to take over the bestseller’s position: Campari Spritz, Limoncello Spritz and, more recently, the new discovery Sarti Spritz, a fruit liqueur made from mango, passion fruit and blood orange. But one is too bitter, the other too sweet or too artificial. “Aperol Spritz remains the undisputed number one,” says Gurrieri.
The Aperol Spritz is a drink for the middle class, for people from the countryside to the big city, the Volkswagen of drinks. A drink that society has agreed on. An import from the country that is the world champion of enjoyment and cuisine. Let’s be honest: Italy always works.