I used to scoff at ready-to-drink cocktails. I like making cocktails, so I couldn’t understand why anyone would settle for a sub-par, overly sweet drink from the store when they could just make their own.
Yeah, I was kinda dumb.
Look, I get it. There are plenty of times I really want a cocktail, but I have zero ambition to make it. In such cases, I have three options. Drive to a place that makes cocktails, see if my oh-so-beautiful wife will make one for me, or just settle for a pour of bourbon in a glass. All three options come with their drawbacks.
The first one, obviously, means I need to leave the house, and I’m going to be honest with you here: if I can’t muster the ambition to go make a cocktail, do you think I’m actually up to putting on “real clothes” and leaving the house? Not a chance. The third one is what happens most of the time. I just pour a glass into a pretty cup and call it “good enough.” And it is, but sometimes I really want more than just a pour of bourbon. In such times, I turn to option two: ask my wife to do it for me.
Now, as I said at the beginning, I love making cocktails. My wife, however, does not. If I ask her to do it, I will most likely get an Old Fashioned. One bottle, a couple shakes of bitters, and one squirt of a sweetener such as honey or agave nectar. Which is great. Except sometimes I want something that isn’t an Old Fashioned. Something like a Negroni, for example. In the past, I’d just get up and do it myself. I’m not the kind of person who asks someone to do something for me when I’m feeling lazy and then critiques what they do for me.
Notice the “in the past” in that previous paragraph? Yeah, I found something online that intrigued me as I was trying to spend enough to get free shipping (spending more than shipping would cost in order to qualify for free shipping is totally logical, right?). I was buying a bottle of Wyoming Whiskey’s National Park No. 3 from Reserve Bar when I saw a 375 mL bottle of Campari Negroni, a ready-to-drink version of the Negroni cocktail. And last night, I put it through its paces…which is just a fancy way of saying I drank two cocktails. One ready-to-drink and one that I made fresh using Beefeater 24, Noilly Prat vermouth, and Campari. Here are my notes.
Campari Negroni, Ready-to-Drink Cocktail
Purchase Info: $26.49 for a 375 mL bottle from ReserveBar.com. It sells at Total Wine near me for $23.99 for a 375 mL.
Price per Drink (50 mL): $3.53
Details: 26% ABV
Nose: Chocolate and cherry
Mouth: Oxidized wine notes along with citrus and baking spice.
Finish: Short and deliciously bitter with notes of cherry, citrus, and chocolate.
Comparison to freshly made: The freshly made is brighter, but the bottled is more complex. Both benefit greatly from an expressed orange peel over the glass.
Thoughts: If I have the ingredients and I make the cocktail, I’ll prefer the freshly made version. It allows me to change the gin I'm using to whatever I'm in the mood for on that day. And with the Beefeter that I used, I prefer the brighter, less oxidized taste of the freshly made. That said, I very seldom have vermouth in the house, as a Negroni is the only cocktail I make where I don't swap the vermouth out for an amaro. So, I can totally see a place in my life for the bottled version. This way, I can have a Negroni on nights when I convince my oh-so-beautiful wife (whom I dearly love) to make cocktails, or there is no vermouth in the house. It’s close enough that I wouldn’t have noticed in a non-head-to-head matchup.
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