Alcohol cocktail Negroni with sliced orange and basil leaves, served on wooden box over black background.
Food - Drink
The Best Gin For A Negroni
By MEGGAN ROBINSON
A Negroni on a blue backdrop.
Like many timeless cocktails, the classic Negroni is made of just a few ingredients, so each component needs to be chosen carefully and treated well. Claire Nafziger, General Manager and Bar Manager of Sofia's Roman Pizza in downtown Denver, Colorado, gave us her expert take on the best style of gin for a perfect Negroni.
Pouring alcohol into a glass.
Nafziger explains that her go-to style is a London dry gin, which balances out best with the Negroni's other two ingredients, Campari and sweet vermouth. Sold by brands like Tanqueray, Bombay, and Beefeater, London dry is both versatile and complex, but most importantly, it "doesn't fight the other flavors," says Nafziger.
Spring22 Gin next to a glass cup.
Nafziger's dry gin brand of choice is made by Spring44 Distilling in Colorado, and is a bit of a hybrid in style, she explains, falling somewhere between a classic London Dry and a New American-style gin. She describes this brand as having "all of the juniper, with floral notes that remind me of mint, lime, rosemary, and a little spice."