Colorful sweet drinks VS refined drinks

From the colorful sweet drinks of some time ago to the refined and conscious drinking of today. In the middle, a sector that has experienced a profound evolution in the space of a few years. With sixty years of drinks and bartenders who have taken turns behind the bar, after all, it is no wonder that today the Red Garter is considered a litmus test of the changes that have occurred both in the world of mixing and in the tastes of customers. Since 1962, the place in Via de’ Benci has gone through passages that have radically changed the way of drinking: what happened on both sides of the counter of the Florentine nightclub, moreover, was the mirror of a progressive but inexorable transformation in the approach to drinking , common throughout Italy. Changes that the owner Riccardo Tarantoli has witnessed, thanks to a past as a bartender before successfully taking on the role of the entrepreneur of the night. It is with him that we review the main evolutions in the way of drinking.

There is no doubt that between the 1980s and 1990s gastronomic alchemies of dubious taste were also carried out on the banks of the Arno. Those were the years in which strawberry risotto and champagne triumphed at the table, for example, while at the bar colorful cocktails strictly based on vodka reigned supreme. Many venues were going through the phase in which mixing focused on “catching” factors such as trashy garnishes, umbrellas and straws. “In that period an increasingly sweet taste reigned – explains Tarantoli – which in part still persists. The classics were distorted to make them suitable for the taste of the time: the Capirinha was ‘bastardized’ becoming Capiroska, while the Mojito became a top seller thanks to the large quantity of sugar to the detriment of the quality of the rum. In short, in those years, we were moving in the direction of sweet and colorful drinks.” At the Red Garter, in particular, the “Zombie” (light rum, dark rum, aperol, brandy and pineapple juice), the “4 whites” (gin, vodka, triple sec and rum) and IBA classics such as the Sex on the Beach, the American and the Long Island. “These last two remain among the most requested drinks – says Riccardo Tarantoli – as a connecting element between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’, and keeping them company is the boom of the Spritz and the great return of the Negroni”.

It should not be forgotten, in this regard, that the cocktail created by Count Camillo Negroni – capable of conquering the scepter of the most drunk alcoholic drink in the world in 2021, displacing the Old Fashioned – was born in Florence just over a century ago. Equally significant for understanding the evolution of taste is the path taken by the Gin Tonic, another profoundly Tuscan drink given that almost half of the juniper used globally comes from this region: “Today it is drunk with a slightly different approach compared to to the past – concludes the owner of Red Garter – because more and more often young people don’t just order it but want to know the companies, the botanicals, the type of blending, etc.. valorising the gins produced by small producers and starting the craft gin boom. Not only that: the greater awareness of today’s consumers leads them to make cocktails authentic substitutes for beer or wine, dining with a drink”.

A change of pace in fine drinking that dates back to the end of the 2000s: “The credit goes to a new generation of bartenders like those at Jerry Thomas in Rome – explains Federico Silvio Bellanca, author of numerous books and TV programs on the world of bars – which bring the classics of mixing back into vogue, giving rise to a new school, that of the Twist on classic: we take slightly outdated cocktails and try to give them new life by playing on the ingredients and borrowing techniques from the kitchen such as homemade preparations, fermentations, smoking and spherification”.