Old Pal

Taste

Equal ounces of rye, Campari, and dry vermouth, so Campari is a third of the drink. Bitter orange and rye heat sit against a dry wine cut, and one barspoon of demerara is brown sugar in a lean formula, rounding the Campari. Rocks with ice. It sits.

History

The Old Pal first prints in Harry MacElhone's 1927 Barflies and Cocktails, not in the A-Z list but in Arthur Moss's Cocktails Round Town essay, the same appendix that carries the Boulevardier. Moss credits William "Sparrow" Robinson, sports editor of the New York Herald in Paris, with equal parts Canadian Club, Italian vermouth, and Campari, dedicated to Moss as My Old Pal. However, by the 1929 edition of Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails the vermouth is French, dry, and that is the formula that stuck. This menu keeps equal rye, Campari, and dry vermouth, adds a barspoon of demerara, and pours it over ice.

• Difford's Guide, Old Pal
• Serious Eats, The Old Pal and a New Friend

Same shape, other bottles

The Negroni family, with the bottle that changed.

• Cin-Cyngin and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth
• Kingston Negroniaged rum and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth
• Mezcal Negronimezcal and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth
• Negronigin and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth
• Brazilian Negronicachaça and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth
• Boulevardierbourbon and sweet vermouth for rye and dry vermouth