The sun is out in full force, which means we’re about to see an uptick in spritzes—mostly of the Aperol variety. And while I don’t mind an Aperol spritz, I’ve reached something of a saturation point. Luckily, it’s easy to make a spritz with different a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. I’m not talking about switching Aperol out for Campari—though you certainly could—but getting something a little more stiff involved, like gin, tequila, or even whiskey.
If you favor tequila, you’re in luck. Anna Billingskog of Food52 wrote an in-depth guide to tequila-based spritzes. If you don’t favor tequila, that’s fine too—you can still use Billingskog’s clever ratio of 1:1: 2 (1 part booze, 1 part amaro or something similar, and two parts bubbles.)
With the exception of the booze, the other two are infinitely customizable. “Amaro or something like it” refers to your standard Italian bitters (like Campari and Aperol), but it can also include vermouth and non-alcoholic bitter sodas (like Crodino or San Bitter), or something like Ghia, which seeks to imitate the flavor of Campari and the like without the ABV. Bubbles can be sparkling wine, club soda, kombucha, pop, or any combination thereof.
A gin spritz, for instance, could be 2 ounces gin, 2 ounces dry curacao, and 4 ounces of sparkling wine (or a combination of 2 ounces sparkling wine and 2 ounces of kombucha). If you want to make a kind of trashy mezcal spritz, try 2 ounces mezcal, 2 ounces Aperol, and 4 ounces lemon-lime soda. For a whiskey spritz, you could do 2 ounces whiskey, 2 ounces sweet vermouth, and 4 ounces ginger beer. You get the idea.
No matter how you build your spritz, make sure to serve it a big ol’ wine glass with lots of ice and a citrus wedge of some kind. Spritzes just taste better out of a big ol’ wine glass, and it’s nice to have a piece of fruit to snack on.