Purple Negroni with Empress Gin (A White Negroni Riff) Recipe

The White Negroni was born in 2001 when British bartender Wayne Collins had to make Negronis at a wine fair in Bordeaux and could not find Campari or sweet vermouth. He reached for two French aperitifs instead, Suze for the bitter and Lillet Blanc for the vermouth, with Plymouth gin underneath, and the drink went on to a long run at Audrey Saunders's Pegu Club in New York. Same skeleton as a Negroni, no red in it.

This one is a White Negroni with two swaps of its own. The gin is Empress 1908 from Victoria Distillers in British Columbia, which is distilled with butterfly pea blossom and pours indigo blue. The bitter is Luxardo Bitter Bianco, a clear Italian bitter Luxardo brought back in 2016 from a 1930s recipe, with the same herbs as its red bitter plus wormwood. Dry vermouth stands in for the Lillet. Dry vermouth is just acidic enough to nudge the Empress from indigo toward purple, which is the whole reason this drink exists.

I keep this one small on purpose. Equal parts at 0.75 oz is a two-sip aperitivo. Go to 1 oz each for a proper drink.

Can I make this with regular gin?

Yes. It becomes a straightforward White Negroni with Bitter Bianco, clear instead of purple, and it tastes nearly the same.

Bitter Bianco or Suze?

Suze is the original White Negroni bitter and leans hard on gentian, an earthy root bitterness. Bitter Bianco is closer to Campari with the color removed: bitter orange, herbs, a little sweetness. Either works. Bitter Bianco is the friendlier of the two.

Why does Empress gin change color?

Butterfly pea blossom is pH sensitive. It sits indigo in the bottle and shifts toward purple when it meets something mildly acidic, like dry vermouth or tonic. Only the peel goes in this drink, so purple is where it lands.