Campari – what kind of drink, how to drink it, a recipe at home

Campari can make you fall in love with yourself, or it can cause hatred. Fans praise its complex bitterness and mild sweetness, while naysayers liken it to cough syrup. Regardless of your feelings, Campari is a drink with an interesting history that can captivate even the most hardened critics. The main thing is to choose the right context.

1

Campari – what kind of drink is this?

Campari is an Italian bitter liqueur, classified as a bitter in its homeland, and as a bitter aperitif in Europe and the USA. We classify it as a drinking bitter. This is a dark red drink based on bitter herbs, aromatic plants and fruits, prepared by infusion (maceration). The strength, depending on the country in which the bitter is sold, varies from 20,5% to 28,5% alcohol by volume. Campari was invented in 1860 by Gaspare Campari, who began serving it in his family cafe “Cafe Campari” in Novaro near Milan and founded Gruppo Campari in the same year (now it owns about fifty alcohol brands).

Campari posters as art.

2

And what does it taste like? Worth a try?

It’s worth a try, of course. Its taste is incomparable to anything else – Campari tastes like… Campari. This is a bitter, so bitterness plays a key role here. The first sip is moderately sweet and slightly spicy, followed by a lingering bitterness. In the aroma of the drink, the tasters noted vine, moss, earthy and woody notes of blackberry, foliage. The palate is dominated by citrus notes, quinine, honey, and a strong line of aromatic herbs. To many, the bitterness of Campari may seem excessive, aggressive. Yes, an aperitif is not for everyone, but you can almost always find ways to drink it, in which any person will appreciate its taste.

3

Yes, it’s unusual. I wonder what it consists of?

The recipe is behind seven seals and only a few in production are familiar with it. Disputes have been going on for many years, according to various estimates, bitter contains from 20 to 80 ingredients. Only three ingredients are known for certain: alcohol, water and sugar. However, with a high probability, the recipe includes cascarolla bark, myrtle orange, calamus, gentian, rhubarb, ginseng. The rest of the herbs, roots and fruits can only be guessed at.

4

Well, yes, as always. And what is Campari used to paint with, did you hear that it could not have done without insects?

Yes, it is, or rather it was. Until 2006, to give the drink a bright dark red color, carmine was used – a natural red dye that is obtained from dried cochineal. The cochineal is a small insect (mistakenly called a beetle by some) that has been used for centuries to extract carmine from the carminic acid produced by female cochineals. But then the company, under pressure from the public, in part because of vegetarians and a small group of allergy sufferers, abandoned carmine in favor of an artificial color. Since then, some purists have noted that the original flavor of the bitter has changed a lot, and not for the better.

5

Wow! And what, it turns out, I will not try the real one?

For the average layman, the difference will be completely imperceptible. If you’re a purist, then yes, a bitter produced after 2006 will be slightly different from the bitter that Gaspare originally conceived. The specialization of our site is far from the ideology of purism, but we will give a couple of Campari recipes for cooking it at home, tinted with carmine. Of course, if you are guided by common sense, then it is easier to buy a bitter – in cooking, any more or less similar imitation does not shine with simplicity, but for the sake of experiment …

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Campari recipes at home

Homemade Campari with carmine on alcohol

Imitation of 1905. We do not know where you will find cascarolle bark and cochineal, but we rely on your ingenuity. In the end, you can always get by with substitutes. For example, cochineal can be safely replaced with red food coloring (E129 – Charming Red AC). Some recipes use hibiscus and even pomegranate flowers. If you still come across cascarolla, then make sure that it is exactly the dark part of the bark, and not the crushed, lighter layer under the bark. For cochineal, opt for whole insects rather than powder, which has a significantly lower carminic acid content. You can look for cochineal in art shops – it is not uncommon for artists to mix paints themselves.

So, to prepare Campari at home, you will need:

  • zest of 12 oranges, without white skin
  • 50 g dried orange peel (bitter orange)
  • 25 g wood quassia bitter
  • 25g wormwood leaves and a few flowers (Artemisia absinthium)
  • 50 g cascarolla bark
  • 50 g dubrovnik ordinary
  • 50 g calamus root (rattan)
  • 50 g angelica root
  • 50 g Chinese or Turkish rhubarb root (R. palmatum)
  • 6 l grain alcohol 95%
  • 14 liter of clean water
  • 7 kg of sugar
  • 60 g cochineal

In a jar of a suitable volume, mix all the ingredients and pour them with a mixture of 3 liters of alcohol and 0,5 liters of water, close the jar tightly. Insist in a dark cool place for 10 days, periodically shaking the contents. Then place the infusion together with herbs in a glass distiller and slowly distill in a water bath with the addition of 1 liter of water. Collect 4 liters of distillate and stop distillation. Start re-distillation and select 3 liters (you can first collect a few heads). Dissolve sugar in 14 liters of water, bring to a boil, remove from heat, cool. Add coloring to chilled syrup(*), aromatic distillate and the remaining 3 liters of alcohol. Filter the mixture and bottle. Store the bitter in a cool, dry place for 3 to 6 months, after which you can start tasting it.

* – to make carmine from cochineal:

In a brass or bronze mortar, grind the dried cochineal into powder. Add 10 g of tartaric acid and 10 g of aluminum alum to the powder, wait for the acid and salts to work in the crushed cochineal, then add 200 ml of pure alcohol and mix until a paste is formed. Cover the resulting paste with something and leave it alone for 2 days. Then add 200 ml of cool water and stir well. Filter the resulting dye into bottles and store in the refrigerator until needed. Shake well before use.

Hard? There is a better recipe.

Campari recipe with carmine on vodka

An imitation that is easier to prepare, where carmine is obtained by banal digestion in syrup. True, with the extraction of herbs and roots, you will have to tinker.

  • 750 ml of vodka
  • 200-250 ml of water
  • 200-250 g of sugar
  • 50 g dried bitter orange peels
  • 30 g lemon rind
  • 16 g angelica root
  • 12 g of anise
  • 12 g calamus root
  • 12 g of fennel
  • 12 g orris root (iris)
  • 12 g dried wormwood
  • 7 g clove buds
  • 5 g marjoram
  • 5 g sage officinalis
  • 5 g thyme
  • 5 g rosemary
  • 4 g cinnamon bark
  • 8 g cochineal

Grind cochineal in a mortar to powder. In a saucepan, mix water and sugar, heating over medium heat, stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add chopped cochineal, mix well, bring water to a boil and boil the syrup with dye for 10-15 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool. When the syrup becomes the desired red color, strain it through several layers of gauze and send it to the refrigerator for storage. Place all other ingredients in a jar of a suitable volume and pour vodka, close the jar tightly and leave at room temperature for 2-3 days of aging. Strain the infusion through gauze, squeeze out the solid residue well, and then pass the liquid a couple of times through cotton wool or coffee filters. Herbs, roots and spices will absorb some of the vodka, so the output should be about 650 ml of infusion. It remains only to mix it with tinted syrup to taste, withstand and apply as directed.

We also advise you to check out the Campari recipe from the HomeDistiller forum user, Alexander (known as faroy), whose ingenuity and enthusiasm are worthy of praise. At your leisure, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the entire branch of “secret recipes”.

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Wow, that’s complicated. What can you say about Aperol, how does it differ from Campari?

By the way, the question is quite popular. As you know, Aperol was attached to Gruppo Campari in 2004 and both drinks conquered the European market together, but each in its own way: Campari – as an ingredient in Negroni, Aperol – as a desirable component of alcohol. This is where the differences between “aperitifs” end for many. It is not surprising, because often bartenders allow themselves to replace one aperitif with another. But the difference between Campari and Aperol, in addition to the difference in taste profile, is significant:

Campari – has a dark red color, strongly pronounced bitterness, a fortress of about 25% and moderate sweetness.

Aperol – lighter, the color is closer to orange, the bitterness is moderate, the fortress is much lower – 11%, and there is an order of magnitude more sugar in it.

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It’s clear. Finally, how to drink Campari?

Only rare connoisseurs of bitters drink Campari with ice; not all receptors cope with its bitterness. If you have not tried this drink yet, then do not try to drink it in its pure form. Better start with Aperol to understand what you have to deal with. But Campari is better to drink like this:

  • with soda – add two parts water, some ice and a slice of orange to one part bitter to muffle the alcohol content and emphasize the refreshing citrus aroma.
  • with citrus juice – instead of soda, use orange juice, the proportions are like those of the Screwdriver; juice will reduce bitterness, add sweetness, but at the same time retain the vegetable character of the bitter; later you can try grapefruit juice.
  • as part of cocktails – definitely Negroni or Americano will become worthy companions in the world of Campari; it is also worth trying the Campari Syringe cocktail, where the bitter is fully revealed; and dozens of other cocktails: Boulvardier (Negroni, in which gin is replaced by bourbon or rye whiskey), Garibaldi (the same Screwdriver with Campari), Camparinha (Caipirinha, in which cachaca is replaced by Campari), Dietzi e Lode (bitter, gin, grapefruit juice), etc.

Campari is one of those drinks, the taste of which you get used to not immediately, but once you get used to it, you fall in love for life. Fall in love!

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