“A low-alcohol, aperitivo cocktail just translates better in a place where people may be drinking a lot,” Matt Reysen told me. He’s found that it helps him meter how much people are taking in while still giving them what they want.
Reysen runs the cocktail program at Discolo, an eccentric underground bar in New York’s Meatpacking district. He calls it a “cocktail club” because it fuses serious mixology with disco and house music. In September of 2022, Reysen helped open the bar in an underground space beneath Al Coro, an Italian restaurant where he also handles the beverage list. His background includes NYC’s Dante, where he worked extensively with bitters, vermouths and amaros—something he now integrates into his drinks menu, creating whimsical aperitivo cocktails with low ABV (alcohol by volume).
In an interview this spring, I asked Reysen if he had any suggestions for a fresh, summer cocktail recipe. He said that he’d recently started carrying Bombay Sapphire’s Murcian Lemon Premier Cru and thought its lemon and orange citrus flavors would be a great match for summer peaches. Reysen is also a big fan of the Negroni and loves spinning off the classic recipe of gin, vermouth rosso and Campari to create seasonal variations. His resulting White Negroni recipe references seasonal fruit, using a range of ingredients—peach amaro, peach bitters, a touch of Giffard Crème de Peche, chamomile-infused Cocchi Americano and Italian apertivo, St. Agrestis—for a fresher variation of the classic bitter cocktail with just a hint of sweetness.
Reysen provided the recipe and I set to gathering the ingredients while I threw a couple of chamomile tea bags into the Cocchi Americano. He recommends doing this the night before and letting the tea bags steep for at least six hours. When mixed, the drink doesn’t feel as strong as a traditional Negroni and is packed with citrus and peach fruit, its sweetness balanced by the dash of bitters and Italian apertivo. The Day Trip Peach Amaro is lighter and brighter than Campari and the chamomile flavors add a floral quality reminiscent of sitting outside on the porch in a garden—great for a hot summer day.
Ingredients
The Peach Negroni Bianco
By Matt Reysen
- 2 dashes of Saline Solution* (see below)
- 2 dashes of The Bitter Truth Peach Bitter
- 1/2 teaspoon Giffard Crème de Pêche
- 1/2 ounce Matchbook Distilling Day Trip Amaro
- 1/2 ounce Chamomile Infused Cocchi Americano** (see below)
- 1 ounce St. Agrestis Paradisio Aperitivo
- 1 1/4 ounce Bombay Premier Cru Murcian Lemon Gin
- 1 twist of lemon
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a large glass and stir with a bar spoon.
- Pour over one large cube.
- Garnish with a lemon twist.
*Saline Solution
- To make the Saline Solution, mix 3 1/2 tablespoons Kosher salt into 2 cups water until completely incorporated. Bottle, label and store.
**Chamomile Infused Cocchi Americano
- For the Chamomile-Infused Cocchi Americano, steep four chamomile tea bags in 1 1/2 cups of Cocchi Americano for six hours. Remove tea bags, bottle, label and store.
Spirits Type:
Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru Murcian Lemon Gin
ABV:
47
Distiller:
Bombay Sapphire, Hampshire, England
Price:
$34
Bombay Sapphire Premier Cru Murcian Lemon
Fresh lemon and mandarin orange lead in this soft, elegant gin—made with fino lemons late-harvested in Murcia, Spain. As Bombay Sapphire’s first Premier Cru, Master distiller Dr. Anne Brock distills each batch herself. Smooth and easy to drink, Murcian Lemon isn’t as potent as other Bombay Sapphire iterations but exudes a sunny, summer quality reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea. While this gin isn’t overly layered or complicated, it is pretty and vibrant; perfect for a French 75 or Reysen’s Peach Negroni Bianco.
Based in Los Angeles, California, Alissa Bica is the Associate Editor and Spirits Critic at Wine & Spirits. She is also a sommelier at 71 Above and co-runs the home wine tasting company, Côte Brune and Blonde. In any rare moments of free time, she writes about obscure grape varieties in the blog Off the Beaten Wine Path.
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