The Lost Negroni

Hey dads, hope you're having a good night. I know it's been a long one for me and I'm ready for a drink. Now this cocktail is new to me, but it's one that I sort of love because I believe it is the source of one of my favorite cocktails ever. This is the Mito. Welcome back dads, I'm Ben Sullins, helping you drink better at home with simple and approachable recipes. So the Mito cocktail might be new to you, but undoubtedly you've tried or at least heard of its most popular offspring, the Negroni. But wait, you say, didn't the Negroni come from the Americano? Sort of. So this is the story of the Mito, the father of the Negroni, or maybe that's a misnomer. Maybe it's like the grandfather of the Negroni. So without boring you too much, the story goes that there were these two new spirits that were created in Italy. One was Campari, created in Milano or Milan, and the other was Vermouth, created in Torino or Turin, Italy, I guess you'd call it. Now, they wanted to sell more of these and the Campari has an extremely bitter flavor. That alone, I think most people wouldn't enjoy. Maybe if you're from Northern Italy, your palate is more sophisticated, I don't know. But Vermouth, on the other hand, is very sweet and a lot of people don't prefer it straight because it is so sweet. So some geniuses in Northern Italy in the 19th century decided to combine them. The bitterness of Campari with the sweetness of Vermouth. One from Milan, one from Torino, so you have the Mito. And this is the origin of this type of drink, which has spawned, I don't know, hundreds, maybe thousands of different variations. And so to start, this is just basically a two-ingredient cocktail. I'm gonna take a chilled glass here, like a old-fashioned type glass, whatever you have. I'm going to add in one ounce of Campari. Then I'm gonna take one ounce of Vermouth. Now make sure you're keeping your Vermouth in the fridge so it doesn't go bad. It is wine, after all. Then I'm going to add in some ice and I'm just using whatever regular ice here, not any kind of fancy ice. Hand-flavored is my preferred. In fact, I'm gonna crack this one and add it so it actually fills up the glass quite a bit better. Got it. Make a mess while you're doing it, of course. Then just give this a good stir, 25, 30 seconds. You really wanna chill these ingredients down and provide the dilution. So this is about the time you'll do it. Perfect time to head over to thecocktaildad.com and join the club. All right, so once that's cold to touch on the outside and diluted down, you can see this is basically ready to go. From here, you could do an orange wheel. You could kind of garnish it however you want. I'm just going to take a nice, good peel using my cheese slicer here and expressing the oil over the top. And there you have the Mito Cocktail. Okay, let's give it a taste. Yeah, it's great. I really like the Campari and the vermouth having a battle here in this drink. And it's a great digestif, just something to have before dinner. If you don't like the bitterness of the Campari, you can tone that down and just have, you know, vermouth with a splash of Campari. Kind of play around with it. Let me know what you think. And like I mentioned, this is the father, or maybe more likely the grandfather of the Negroni, like a dozen other drinks, including one that is the most directly accredited with being the father of the Negroni or the source of the original Negroni, which is similar to the Mito, but with just one small addition. So to learn to make that drink, check it out in this video right over here. If it's not out yet, head to thecocktaildad.com and join the club. Get notified when it does come out. Also subscribe down below and let me know how it's going in the comments. But above all else, enjoy your evening. Cheers, guys. Cheers.