Everything You Need To Know About The Negroni Sbagliato

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While the classic Negroni has been trendy for several years now, if you're not a fan, you're not alone. Even those who rave about it, like The New York Times and Epicurious, do admit that it's awfully bitter, while VinePair notes that the cocktail is actually not too popular in its native land as many Italians don't care for the flavor. Well, there's no need to tweak your tastebuds! You now have a second chance to hop on a viral cocktail fad that transforms the classic Negroni into something lighter, bubblier, and yes, not quite as bitter: the Negroni sbagliato.

If you've been following your booze news lately, you've undoubtedly seen all kinds of buzz over this what's turning out to be fall's hottest new (or newly rediscovered) drink. So newsworthy is the Negroni sbagliato at present that Hoda Kotb and Willie Geist even imbibed during a recent episode of the Today show (the Negroni sbagliato isn't too alcoholic, so it's actually fairly well suited for a brunch drink). Geist's verdict was "it is tasty," while all Hoda managed before the clip ended was "mmm ... okay." Even if these two didn't exactly give it a rave review, the drink hardly needs their endorsement at this point. It's already off and running to the point where bartenders in New York (and elsewhere) are running through Campari and Prosecco like there's no tomorrow (or "Today," for that matter).

If you're fluent in Italian, you may get a giggle out of the name "Negroni sbagliato," or at least the last part. Sbagliato, it seems, means "mistake," and the epithet is a reference to the drink's origin story. Before we recount that tale, though, let's rewind a bit to the creation of the original Negroni. It seems that this drink, too, started off as a riff on another drink, that being the Americano. While this drink is made with vermouth, bitters, and soda, an Italian bartender swapped the soda for gin at the request of a hard-drinking customer back in 1919. Hey presto, and fast forward a century, and now the Negroni is all over Instagram.

The sbagliato "oopsie" happened over five decades later, when, as per the Mirror, a disco-era bartender (again, an Italian one) grabbed a bottle of Prosecco instead of the gin needed to make a Negroni, and thus was a new drink created. If this doesn't sound like an easy mistake to make (sparkling wine comes in a totally different type of bottle, after all) John Cusimano (aka Mr. Rachael Ray) has his suspicions, as well. In an article he wrote for his wife's website, he theorizes that the drink may owe its creation to the fact that the bar simply ran out of gin. Whether created by accident or on purpose, though, the sbagliato definitely falls under the category of a happy little discovery.

So where can you order fall's hottest drink? As Jessica King tells Good Morning America, "Ordering a sbagliato at most bars shouldn't be a challenge, provided they carry an aperitivo such as Select or Campari, they have stored their vermouth properly, and they have a fresh bottle of bubbles for the popping." Still, though, this isn't something you should try asking for at Applebee's (dollar sbagliatos have yet to become a thing), nor are sbagliatos likely to be available at your corner shot-and-beer bar. If you want to make sure you'll find the Negroni sbagliato on the menu, or at least in the bartender's repertoire, one place you'll definitely find it is at King's own bar, Brother Wolf, in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Hint: no need to order your drink "with Prosecco" as it's a standard ingredient.)

Another place you can for sure get a Negroni sbagliato is Philadelphia's Martha — beverage manager Daniel Miller tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that the drink "ha[s] been a favorite drink of mine for years, so it does make me happy that there is finally attention on it." It's also big in New York City, as Harper's Bazaar reports that Cathédrale at Moxy East Village, Bar Calico, and Georgia Room have all seen quite a bump in sales, while Boston's Bar Volpe makes a version with black truffle. On the West Coast, the Negroni sbagliato is one of a number of Negroni variants available at Bar Toscana Brentwood.

Whether or not you love Negronis in their original form or their super-popular sbagliato-fied version, you may want to experiment with some of the other variants out there (we've rounded up a dozen). If you're wondering just how far you can stray from the basic Negroni recipe, in most cases, the Campari and vermouth are must-haves, but the spirit itself is swappable. One popular variant is the mescal Negroni, where you-know-what is swapped out for gin. (You could try it with tequila, too, if that's what you have on hand.)

Other well-known drinks that ditch the gin are the Boulevardier, which is made with bourbon, and the Old Pal, made with rye. The latter drink introduces us to another permitted tweak: You can use dry vermouth in place of the sweet stuff without losing your Negroni card. Additional variants include adding an extra ingredient: The Dear Jane is basically a plain old Negroni with the addition of a little "bartender's ketchup," aka St. Germain elderflower liqueur, while the Gloria not only replaces the sweet vermouth with dry but also adds Cointreau. There are even a few Negronis that — gasp!! — ditch the Campari, thus putting them in a kind of grey area, Negroni-wise, but the Cynar Negroni and white Negroni at least replace the drink's signature ingredient with similar bitter-flavored liqueurs. For a double dose of trendy, though, you could do no better than the cold-brew Negroni made with Campari-infused coffee.