First Aperol Spritz

The Aperol Spritz is a modern drinking phenomenon, a neon orange beacon of cultural Italian chic. But when was it first made? And by whom?

Go to any European bar, especially at sunset, and the tables are overflowing with copa glasses of Aperol Spritz, perfectly poured to the ‘official’ recipe of 3-2-1: 3 parts Prosecco (or sparkling wine), 2 parts Aperol, 1 part soda water, and garnished with a slice of orange.

Light, refreshing, stylish & Instagrammable – it’s become a zeitgeist lifestyle drink that’s bang-on trend for the aperitivo renaissance and our booming trend for social patio culture. Over 300,000 glasses of Aperol Spritz are served daily in Northern Italy alone, for goodness sake!

To fully understand the origins of Aperol, we must first head to Italy’s Veneto Region at the end of the 18^th century to meet one of the more eccentric members of the extended founding family: a want-to-be abbot called Giuseppe Barbieri.

At the time – around the 1790s – Giuseppe was a monk at the Praglia Abbey, an ancient and historically significant Benedictine monastery located in the Euganean Hills about 12km from Padua.

Far from living a quiet religious life, he was an outspoken and strong-willed liberal according to family lore – and he happened to live in a time of great political upheaval in Europe.

Napoleon was fast coming to fame and prominence, proving his military prowess through his ‘Italian campaigns’, a series of conflicts fought mostly in Northern Italy between the French Revolutionary Army, which he commanded, against forces from a coalition of Austria, Russia, Piedmont-Sardinia and several other Italian states. Padua was right in the heart of the action, a strategic communications hub important to both sides, so saw a hell of a lot of action.

Napoleon’s first offensive was in 1796, in which he succeeded against all odds and a far bigger army, securing his long-standing reputation as a tactical genius. It is said that Barbieri became dazzled by the young Napoleon, along with his religious assurances, respect for local customs and promise of full independence for the Republic of Venice (and which Padua was a part). He was vocal in his support – a political stance that got him black marked by the local religious hierarchy.

Sadly for Barbieri, Napoleon ultimately reneged on all his promises when he signed the Treaty of Campo Formio on 17^th October 1797, which ended the War of the First Coalition in Italy. He partitioned the Republic, ceding it to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, effectively ending over 1,000 years of Venetian independence and dashing the hopes of many Italian nationalists – including Giuseppe – for true self-governance. 

Giuseppe Barbieri was furious at Napoleon’s betrayal, more so when it meant he was barred from becoming abbot of Praglia Abbey by the Bishop of Padua, who cited political reasons (steered by the new conservative Austrian religious order).  

In an act of extreme but petty revenge, he revealed the secret recipes to all the alcoholic liqueurs and herbal infusions distilled in the abbey by the Benedictine monks to his nephew Luigi. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Luigi set up the Barbieri’s first artisanal distillery in 1805, beginning the family’s foray into the drinks business.

It proved an inspired, if spiteful, move. Just a few years later, in 1810, Praglia Abbey fell into disrepair after a decade of Napoleonic suppressions, with the monks scattered and the buildings used instead as a barracks and a storage depot. In the 1890s, the abbey was described by visitors as:

“… the great Benedictine Abbey of Praglia, now used as a barrack(s) ... when (the soldiers) depart ... the interminable corridors and cells, refectories and parlors, cloisters and courts, are white-washed and dreary, scrawled over with the names and jests of soldiers.”

The Living Age, Volume 186, Among the Euganean Hills, John Addington Aymonds

From the early 1800s, the stolen recipes were presumably passed down from father to son – and we pick up the story again in Padua around the 1880s, after Italy had been in a near constant state of political and military upheaval.

But all these invasions, battles and skirmishes did create one surprisingly uplifting thing: the spritz!  

The word ‘spritz’ originates from the German verb spritzen, which means ‘to spray, squirt or splash’. It was the perfect description for what the Austrian soldiers fighting in occupied Northern Italy in the 19^th century were doing when drinking in the Italian sun. They started a trend for diluting the local wines with a splash of water to make them less strong (effectively reducing the ABV to be more like the beer they were used to in their daily rations).

Today it seems crazy that Northern Italy – including Venice, Milan and Padua – was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at all, but it took three Wars of Independence (between 1848 and 1866) to eventually start to unify the country. The spritz, it seems, is the only positive thing to come out of this turbulent time, surviving and thriving long after the soldiers had retreated. At first, the addition of water or soda was mainly adopted by the Venetians, who flexed their drinking muscles by replacing water with Prosecco. But it wasn’t long before the refreshing new drink was enthusiastically adopted by the rest of the country.

But let’s get back to the Barbieri story…

Padua, Italy

In 1880, another Barbieri relative – who was also called Giuseppe (the family weren’t very imaginative with their first names) – left his hometown of Este to open a small distillery in the bustling city of Padua. Just 25 years old at the time, he set up in Via Tommaseo 17, where the business flourished thanks to his eye for detail and helped perhaps by some technological advancements in printing and glassmaking, which had reached Padua following its inclusion in the Kingdom of Italy in 1866. 

The business boomed and their portfolio grew. Some of their flagship brands included Ovos, an alcoholic egg cream liqueur, made from egg yolks, sugar and Marsala wine (basically, Italian Advocaat). There was also Liquore S. Antonio, a complex recipe of herbs and spices named after St Anthony, the patron saint of Padua (surprisingly similar to the taste profile of Green Chartreuse, a classic Benedictine monk recipe).

The business continued happily and successfully for decades before Giuseppe retired and handed it down to his two sons in 1912. Silvio Barbieri was 29 at the time and his brother Luigi Barbieri was 27.

But there were storm clouds on the horizon. World War I broke out in 1914 and the two brothers were immediately drafted when Italy entered the war in 1915, with the aim of completing national unity.

Few concrete details are known about their war experiences, but it sounds like Luigi had a pretty hard time of it. In 1917/18 he was gassed in the Carso (Karst) region, fighting the Austro-Hungarian army in a series of brutal trench warfare battles. It sounded horrific. The Italian army faced devastating gas attacks, with enemies using chlorine and phosgene, a lethal concoction that caused breathing difficulties and suffocation. The chemicals were often delivered via artillery shells, most notably during the massive offensive known as the Battle of Caporetto in late 1917, where there were mass casualties.

Luigi survived but they had to remove one of his lungs and half the other. While convalescing, he went to Cortina d'Ampezzo in the northern Italian Dolomites in 1919 – a town that was to later become a picture postcard upscale alpine resort – staying at the Hotel De La Poste. It was spring so he naturally took lots of fresh mountain walks for his health, where he started collecting flowers, herbs and berries, which he’d then crush and boil in different flavourful combinations.

One liqueur recipe particularly stood out, and was bright orange, which he shared with his brother Silvio when they were reunited back in Padua.

Not much is known of Silvio’s war. He returned to Italy after being in Paris for a while, where he met his future wife. After tasting Luigi’s herbal concoction, he knew they had to make it commercially, but it needed a name to match the drinking occasion. They eventually agreed to call it after the beloved French tradition of pre-dinner drinks he’d experienced along the Champs-Élysées, known colloquially as aperó (short for aperitif).   

Aperol was born.

They immediately registered the recipe in Padua. Today, that recipe is still a secret, but experts agree the flavour and aroma come from a blend of sweet and bitter orange peels, rhubarb, gentian root, cinchona (quinine) and a host of other unnamed plants, all steeped, macerated and infused to create Aperol’s signature bitter-sweet base.

The extraordinary and eye-catching orange colour would almost certainly have been originally achieved with natural dyes like turmeric and cochineal (while today they’re known to use permitted colourants).

The Barbieri brothers had succeeded in creating an Italian aperitivo at 11% ABV, which was significantly less alcoholic than other contemporary liqueurs but was just as aromatic and complex. It was something new and exciting; a lighter, brighter and more refreshing drink that was perfect for the Northern Italian tradition of the ‘spritz’.   

Once the drink had been perfected, the marketing began in earnest. Aperol was officially introduced at Padua’s Fiera Campionaria (International Trade Fair) on 21^st July 1919, a new indoor exhibition started by six local entrepreneurs, including Silvio Barbieri. Dedicated to food, travel and lifestyle, it was an event that marked the city's social and economic rebirth after World War I.

The fair was a huge success, attracting around 642 exhibitors and over 170,000 visitors, including King Victor Emmanuel III, Italy's constitutional post-war monarch. For the Barbieri brothers, their new drink seen and tasted by a nation in need of a positive news story, eager for a brighter future and desperate for something Italian to celebrate – it became the making of Aperol’s future success.

In the 1920s, Aperol started to be marketed as a lighter and healthier alternative to spirits. A decade later, they played on their 11% ABV yet again with an advertising campaign specifically aimed at women that stated ‘Signora! Aperol keeps you thin’.

But it wasn’t until the 1950s and 60s that the Aperol Spritz was formally introduced and codified, becoming even more popular in Padua, Venice and other parts of the Veneto region. It was perhaps helped by the first Aperol comedic TV advert, known as ‘Il Carosello’, which featured a famous Italian actor called Tino Buazzelli as a forgetful surgeon who always seemed to remember the name Aperol Spritz.

The Aperol Spritz was booming locally but it wasn’t really until the 2010s that it became a global aperitivo sensation. The key was the company’s acquisition by Gruppo Campari on 1^st December 2003 for €150m, who then started investing heavily in the official Spritz recipe and exporting it to the USA. With the support of a beverage behemoth, it quickly became synonymous with summer and sunsets, permanently linked to the ‘golden hour’ and unisex social outdoor gatherings. Suddenly every back bar had a bottle prominently displayed. Success was assured and the world turned orange with a staggering 86.4 million litres sold worldwide in 2023, roughly equivalent to 1 billion Aperol Spritzes!