Bangkok has finished feting its second participation in Negroni Week, the global campaign where bars around the world serve negroni and give the proceeds to charity, gathering together the most bars taking part in any Asian city and raising Bt64,000 on the opening night alone.

Initiated by Imbibe magazine in the US, the first Negroni Week took place in May 2013 with mainly bars in the US participating. In 2014, Imbibe took the campaign to promote Negroni a level higher, teaming up with Campari, the Italian aperitif brand, to present Negroni Week on a global scale. This year again, Campari acted as the presenting sponsor and committed to donating US$10,000 to the charity chosen by the bars and restaurants that raised the most money during Negroni Week.

Probably the grandest Negroni Week in the campaign’s brief history, the 2016 event saw 6,043 participating venues across the world, 49 of them cocktail bars and clubs around Bangkok.

The opening night was hosted by The House on Sathorn, who chose to support Operation Smile Thailand, a non-profit organisation that provides reconstructive facial surgery to indigent children and young adults. The party, which had “vintage red” as its theme, kicked off with funky jazz and some interesting twists to the classic cocktail.

Overall proceeds from Negroni Week Bangkok have yet to be announced, but judging by the number of participating bars, it seems very likely that the event has raised quite a lot of money for good causes.

Among this year’s participating bars were Vesper, Backstage Cocktail Bar, Rabbit Hole, Hunts Eatery and Bar, Octave, Lady Brett Tavern, U.N.C.L.E, Hyde and Seek, Belles’ Room and Zuma. Each brought its personal touch to the traditional mix of gin, Campari and vermouth, exciting cocktail lovers with modern and conceptual twists that included a bottle-ageing technique, the addition of lemon juice and egg to create a hybrid recipe of negroni and whisky sour, as well as negroni with truffle, berries and other unexpected ingredients.

With its perfect balance of flavour, the negroni is an all-time classic and has the distinct advantage of being easy to make. It’s itself a hybrid, an adaptation of the Americano, which is a simple blend of Campari, vermouth and soda. The story goes that the drink was invented in Florence in 1919 when Count Negroni asked for a slug of gin in his Americano in place of the soda. So the aromatic and dangerously alcoholic Negroni was born, and thence adopted by Italians as an appetite-building pre-dinner drink, or a palate-cleansing settler for afterwards.

The drink has rarely been tampered with over the last 100 years. It’s now a trendy choice in hipster pubs and cocktail bars, where whole Negroni menus are emerging, but the basic blueprint remains the same – one part gin, one part Cinzano vermouth rosso and one part Campari, garnished with orange peel.

Cheers!

Drink up

Negroni Week will return next year. Keep updated at http://negroniweek.com.