If you’ve ever had the good fortune of wandering into an Italian piazza around 6 p.m., you’ve witnessed something close to nirvana. The amber glow of evening sun washing over narrow streets and stone fountains. Dapper locals meandering into the town square to secure their spot at the caffè. Trays balancing spritzes and snacks move en masse.
Italy’s relationship to cocktails is unlike anywhere else in the world. “It’s the prelude to the table,” La Roqqa’s Andrea Notaro says. The tradition of aperitivo, which derives from the Latin word aperire (“to open”), is designed to prepare the stomach for dinner and is woven into everyday life. “While Paris perfected precision and London perfected ceremony, Italy built its entire bar culture around a single, effortless, glamorous idea: that a drink should announce dinner, not conclude it,” Chris Moore, director of beverage for Jean-Georges Restaurants, says.
Italian cocktail culture is also distinct for its regional—not imported—flavors. Americans may have invented the modern cocktail, but Italy had all the elements ready to go once they got mixing. “We didn’t have to build a cocktail culture from scratch,” Castello di Vicarello’s Brando Baccheschi Berti says. “Vermouth, amari, bitters—here these ingredients aren’t bar exotica, they’re things that sat in grandparents’ cupboards, with real regional roots.”
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Within the canon of great Italian cocktails, you’ll often find a shared structure: an Italian bitter, an Italian fortified wine, and something sparkling. “They are recipes that came out of the caffè as a cultural living room, rather than out of a cocktail bar,” Notaro explains. At the same time, Italian cocktails possess a strong sense of place, each with their own identity and origin story. “Alpine amaros and drinks immediately transport you to the mountains, and aperitifs from the coast make you feel like you should be drinking them within view of the ocean,” Borgo’s Kat Foster says.
“I particularly value that sense of place,” Giuseppe Lamparella, who leads Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria’s new bar, La Pergola, adds. “Here in Sorrento, for example, citrus, Mediterranean herbs, and especially our lemons naturally become part of the language of the bar.”
In celebration of Vogue World 2026 Milan, continue below for an expert guide to the great Italian cocktails.
The Milano-Torino
Regarded as a forefather of Italian cocktails, the Milano-Torino is a quintessential order. “It combines bitter Campari from Milan and red vermouth from Turin, creating the sweet-and-bitter foundation of all national mixology,” says Ambrogio De Siano from Ischia’s San Montano Resort & Spa. The drink is lesser known these days, and is often confused with the Americano, explains Borgo Santandrea’s head bartender Andrea Pinto. “The addition of soda is what transforms it into an Americano, but the Milano-Torino is beautifully simple and deserves to be rediscovered.”
