Angelini 1890 Spritz

• 1½ oz Select Aperitivo
• ½ oz Braulio Amaro
• 4 oz Prosecco
• 1 oz Club Soda
• Build in a wine or spritz glass over ice.
• Stir gently.
• Garnish with one or two orange wheels.

Happy Friday, friends!

I am determined not to let the local wildfires—or this ongoing pea-soup smoke—get me all the way down.

That is not to minimize any of it. Smoke settling in the valley has a way of changing the texture of a day. It dims the light, blurs the hills, closes the windows, and leaves you wondering whether a quick bike ride, a patio dinner, or even a trip to the grocery store is worth the air you will breathe getting there.

But this week, I have multiple reasons to celebrate.

And because it is the height of summer, a summer spritz is called for.

Say hello to the Angelini 1890 Spritz.

I came across this one thanks to Leandro DiMonriva and his Educated Barfly YouTube channel, where he featured it in a short video. If you are not following Leandro for cocktail recommendations, you should be. His work is consistently thoughtful, approachable, and just nerdy enough to make you want to rearrange your whole home bar.

This particular spritz caught my attention because it avoids the expected Campari-or-Aperol lane and instead brings together two amaros: Select Aperitivo and Braulio.

As has been established here at Flavor Notes, I am not a huge Campari or Aperol guy. I understand their importance. I respect their legacy. I will absolutely drink either one when the occasion calls for it. But I often find both a little too sweet and a little too single-minded for my own palate.

By comparison, Select Aperitivo is a fantastic stand-in for Campari in classic builds because it brings sweet orange and bitter structure while offering considerably more depth. Select was created in Venice in 1920 and became foundational to the Venetian spritz tradition. Its recipe includes 30 botanicals, with juniper and rhubarb giving it a balance of resinous freshness, floral lift, citrus, and root-driven bitterness.

You may remember Select from the Matador in a Plum Orchard, where I made the provocative claim that it is “a better Campari than Campari.” I stand by it.

In this spritz, though, Select is not working alone.

The Angelini 1890 adds a half-ounce of Braulio Amaro, one of my personal favorites. Braulio was created in 1875 by Francesco Peloni in Bormio, an Alpine town near the Swiss border. The recipe grew from generations of local pharmacy and herbal knowledge, and it remains a tightly held secret. What is publicly known is enough to explain the magic: gentian, wormwood, yarrow, and juniper contribute to an amaro that tastes like a walk through an Alpine landscape after rainfall.

There is gentian bitterness. There is dry bark. There is dark cola. There is crisp mint, evergreen, and an almost cooling mountain-air quality that makes me want to be somewhere high enough to need a sweater after sunset.

If you wish to be transported, Braulio is your ticket.

The Angelini 1890 is a spritz that looks thirsty. The orange wheels remind me of summer soccer: hot grass, water bottles, exhausted kids, and parents handing out orange slices at halftime and after the match. I have no idea who decided orange slices were the universal youth-sports snack, but apparently every parent in every league received the same memo.

The drink’s glowing orange-red color, its full glass of ice, and that impatient fizz from Prosecco and soda all create the same primal summer reaction: get this glass into my hands immediately.

At first, sweet orange from the Select arrives at the front of the palate. Then the deeper amaro notes begin to show themselves. Braulio’s alpine evergreens and gentian bitterness meet the dry sparkle of the Prosecco, cooling and sharpening the mid-palate. On the finish, the botanicals gather into a pleasantly bitter, aromatic close—just enough to make your next swallow feel necessary.

It is easy-drinking but not simple. It is festive but still serious enough to hold my attention.

More importantly, it is a very smart low-ABV choice for a summer party: enough flavor to feel special, enough refreshment to handle a hot evening, and not so much proof that the host becomes trapped behind the bar or the guests become tomorrow’s cautionary tales.

And speaking of parties…

With an Angelini 1890 Spritz in hand, I am waiting impatiently for this weekend to arrive.

First, there is baseball.

The Kelowna Falcons have earned a postseason berth, and their opening home game is against the Wenatchee AppleSox. These clubs play in the same West Coast League as the Portland Pickles, a team my family and I caught a few times during our Portland years.

It has been a pleasure to watch these college-age players improve over the course of a short, intense summer season. A friend and I have also been bringing Kelowna Newcomers Club members to games weekly, which has given the experience another layer: baseball as community infrastructure.

Then, after Friday night’s playoff energy, my wife and I are hosting our first house party since moving to Kelowna.

Hosting friends was something we tried to do at least once a year before the move—certainly once we emerged from the pandemic. Developing a pandemic hobby involving spirits and cocktails creates an obvious problem: eventually, you have to share it with other people.

So we would invite friends and neighbors over, gather the various circles of our life in one room, and let conversation do the rest.

One Portland year, I pre-batched six to eight Negroni variations for a party. It made serving drinks very easy. Possibly too easy for some, as I recall. But it was also a crucial education for me as a host: batching cocktails meant I could get out from behind the bar and actually attend my own party.

In hindsight, that sounds obvious. At the time, it felt like a revelation.

This weekend’s party feels like its own occasion. Many of the people joining us are friends we have made through the Kelowna Newcomers Club. Next month marks one year since we first became KNC members—a deliberate decision to learn our new city beyond my wife’s recollection and build community at the same time.

My wife immediately got involved with the board and monthly meetings. I saw a few gaps that I was selfishly interested in filling: bike rides, cocktails and spirits tastings, and, this summer, Falcons baseball.

And through those activities, we have met people who have become more than acquaintances. They are people we look forward to seeing. People with whom we have shared rides, drinks, meals, sporting events, stories, and the strange, exhilarating work of becoming established in a new place.

That is worth a party.

So while the region endures wildfires and the Okanagan absorbs smoke from across B.C. and Washington state, I am choosing this weekend to hold tightly to the things that make a place feel livable: sport, friendship, good drinks, an open home, and the simple relief of laughing with people who were strangers not all that long ago.

With this Angelini 1890 Spritz in hand, I gratefully toast the Kelowna Falcons on their season, the friends we have made during our first year-plus in Kelowna, and the little communities that keep our spirits up when the skies turn smoke-grey.

See you tomorrow night.

Cheers! 🍷🦅🍁