Aperol Cosmopolitan

A stunning Aperol Cosmopolitan that’s perfect for sipping. I must confess, sometimes I love a good cosmo. But the key with making a great one is using good quality ingredients. In this case, good vodka and actual Contreau, seriously, don’t skimp it makes a difference. This drink highlights the alcohol, so you need the quality to be top notch or it’s just not worth it if you ask me.

Cosmos had their run in the 1990’s and later plummeted out of sight. But cosmos sould be regarded as more than just a trend or “drink of the moment”, they actually made a significant impact on how we approach drinking, and the cocktail culture in general. The trendy high-end cocktail world we now live in, with top-notch exotic ingredients and complexity only a mixologist can recreate, can actually be seen as a direct response to the simplistic era the Cosmo embodied not so long ago. Cosmos allowed for evelution in the cocktail world.

Cosmos are a later-in-life find for me, and although I don’t drink them often, I really do enjoy them. Aperol is an Italian apéritif made of gentian, rhubarb, and cinchona and has become super popular in recent years. Although it tastes and smells much like Campari, Aperol has an alcohol content of 11% which is half that of Campari. Aperol is both lighter in color and substantially less bitter in taste than Campari (which is something I prefer) despite them having the same sugar content.

An Aperol spritz seemed to be the signature drink everywhere we went while traveling in Hungary last summer. This quickly became my husband’s preferred warm-weather cocktail. It’s not technically summer anymore, but sometimes I like to be different and challenge the normas. This Aperol Cosmopolitan is what I call a great transition cocktail as we begin to say goodbye to summer and welcome fall. Cheers!

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