The spritz has a problem: success. Once Aperol cracked the mainstream, every pub chain started calling anything served over ice in a balloon glass a "spritz" — Echo Falls blue raspberry, Malibu cranberry, pink gin with a parasol. The original is an Italian aperitif structure with a 3-2-1 logic (three parts prosecco, two parts liqueur, one part soda water), and it works because bitter, fizzy, and cold is one of the most reliable flavour triangles in drinking. Pub chains have clocked the aesthetics without understanding the architecture. This summer, UK web searches for the Hugo spritz — an elderflower-based drink said to have been invented in Naturno, northern Italy in 2005 — overtook Aperol spritz searches for the first time. That's a meaningful signal. The Hugo is lighter, more floral, and lower in alcohol than Campari or even Aperol (11%), which means it reads as sessionable without tasting medicinal. It also photographs well, which in 2026 is not nothing. The bittersweet Italian canon is deep and mostly ignored outside specialist bars. Select (17.5% ABV, Venice, 1920) is the original spritz base — the spritz Veneziano predates the Aperol craze by decades, built around rhubarb roots and 30 herbs and botanicals. Campari (25%, Milan, 1860) is the author's declared favourite and the most demanding: properly bitter, complex, and worth the attention. Cynar (16.5%, Padua, 1952) is artichoke-based and genuinely strange in the best way — much further from the Aperol sweetness spectrum than most drinkers expect. Beyond Italy, the alternatives section earns its place. Limoncello spritz uses a liqueur first produced around 1900 in Naples and along the Amalfi coast; the Italicus (bergamot-based, Turin, since 2016) is the newest addition to the serious category. The kumquat spritz is the real find: kumquats arrived in Corfu in 1846, the liqueur has been made since the 1920s, and the drink is the island's answer to Aperol — bright orange, slightly more complex, and almost impossible to find in UK pubs. Sarti Rosa (launched 2023, blood orange and passionfruit) is the outlier: Casa Sarti was founded in Bologna in 1885, but this product reads tropical in a way that sits oddly in the bittersweet family. Take it or leave it. The shandy section is the underrated half of this piece. Ocado sales up 40% year on year, Shandy Shack now in M&S — the resurgence is real and underreported. The shandygaff (ginger beer or ale, dating to 1853) is the original British format. The radler (pink grapefruit soda and lager) is the German/Austrian equivalent. The portergaff — porter or stout with lemonade or ginger beer — is the one to try if you're already a craft beer drinker: Sophie Atherton's suggestion of stout with cream soda is genuinely worth testing. The cola shandy (beer-cola in France, mazout in Belgium, diesel in Germany) is included with appropriate deadpan energy. The ratios are 50:50 and the method is pour soft drink first, then add beer slowly — actual useful technique, not padding. The piece's structural contribution is the home-assembly framing. The 3-2-1 spritz formula (75ml/50ml/25ml at standard size, scalable in both directions) is one of those pieces of kitchen knowledge that genuinely improves your life. It demystifies a category that bars have successfully mystified in order to charge £10 for something that costs £1.50 to make. That's the real editorial point buried under the recipes: you don't need a pub.
