Total time to make this recipe: 5

2 glasses of spritz with orange slices and a bottle of aperol

When you say Aperitivo, you say Aperol Spritz. In Italy, when the weather is nice, you'll see people hanging out at bars from 5 to 7 having the Aperitivo. Drinking Prosecco, Crodino but mostly Aperol Spritz. This sparkling bright orange drink can brighten up any day, especially if enjoyed outside!

Aperol Spritz has always been my favorite Aperitivo drink. It's sparkling, fresh, lightly bitter, and lightly citrusy. It's the perfect way to start the evening, outside in the nice sunny weather, eating small bites of puff pastry Pizza, Tarallini and chips.

In summer, especially when I go back to Italy to visit, Aperitivo is the best part of the day. You can meet every person you know at the bar, everybody's outside to chit-chat, drink and eat snacks.

What is Aperitivo?

Aperitivo does not have a literal English translation. It's similar to happy hour but it's a whole different concept.

The main "purpose" of Aperitivo is to stimulate hunger before dinner, with drinks and snacks. Every single bar and cafè in Italy can serve Aperitivo, although some are better than others: usually, you pay for the drink (the same price as always) and you'll get free snacks to go with it, like chips and peanuts. Some bars instead will have a fixed price (around 7-10 euro) and you'll also get a huge variety of all-you-can-eat food like pasta salads, pizza slices, sandwiches, and so on.

Amongst young people, it's very common to do the "Aperi-cena" which means aperitivo/dinner, since some bars offer such a huge amount of food you can easily have dinner with less than 10 euros.

overhead of a glass of spritz with ice and orange slices

What is Aperol Spritz?

Aperol is a very well-known brand of bitter, an alcoholic drink made with herbs.

Spritz, instead, is the name of the cocktail invented around the '20s or '30s in the North of Italy, specifically around Padova and Venice. Spritz is a mix of equal parts of Prosecco, bitter and sparkling water or soda. Aperol is the most common bitter, but Spritz can also be with Campari or Select.

Originally it was used an old-fashioned glass to serve the Spritz, but around 2015 the brand Aperol suggested a red wine glass to serve it and this is how most of the cafès around the world will serve it.