Remember The Alimony: The Negroni Twist That's Perfect For Fall
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No, it's not the Dick Van Dyke episode when Rob and Laura end up in Mexico and are served divorce papers. But, while we love some Mary Tyler Moore, Remember the Alimony is a cocktail perfectly suited for sweater weather.
The drink was devised by bartender Dan Greenbaum, former owner of the now-closed East Village watering hole The Beagle, as Epicurious explains. Greenbaum tells the foodie site he indulged in sherry-forward drinks at The Beagle, and he was constantly experimenting with cocktails that featured the boozy wine, which can have an ABV upwards of 22, writes Unusual Wines. So while riffing on a standard Negroni, Greenbaum swapped the usual Campari with Cynar, an Italian liqueur made from 13 herbs — artichoke being its primary ingredient — and considered a digestive for its tummy-soothing properties.
Like Remember the Alimony, the Negroni was conjured from a different cocktail called the Americano, an Americanized (with soda water) Milano-Torino cocktail, which was Campari and vermouth (via Spirit of York). In 1919, at a friend's behest, bartender Forsco Scarsell, mixing at Caffe Casoni in Florence, traded the Americano's soda water for gin and its lemon peel for orange, creating the beloved aperitif.
Remember the Alimony is a Negroni for fall
Both the classic Negroni and Remember the Alimony are three ingredient drinks. In addition to the Cynar swap, Remember the Alimony uses sherry in place of vermouth. Both sherry and vermouth are considered fortified wines, which means distilled spirits are added; however, vermouth also features herbs, which gives the Negroni a botanical quality (via Wine Spectator.) Both the Negroni and Remember the Alimony include gin and an orange peel twist.
Greenbaum's craft cocktail bar may have shuttered in 2013 after two and half years (via Eater), but his fall favorite cocktail concoction lives on, including in two books: "Spirited: Cocktails from Around the World" by Adrienne Stillman and "3-Ingredient Cocktails: An Opinionated Guide to the Most Enduring Drinks in the Cocktail Canon" by two-time James Beard award-nominated author Robert Simonson. Remember the Alimony is rumored to be Simonson's favorite cocktail, per Cocktail Detour.
Those not quite ready to let go of the warmer weather can sip on a Poolside in Italy, which features Cynar with grapefruit juice and gin.