White Negroni

If you don’t have Lillet Blanc, you can try substituting it with either dry or blanc vermouth, or dry sherry. However, you might want to increase their proportion slightly as Lillet Blanc is sweeter. Ultimately, don’t be afraid to add up to a small barspoon of simple syrup to match it to your palate.

Anders Erickson recommends this cocktail with different specs: 45ml gin, 22.5ml Suze and 22.5ml Lillet Blanc. See which one you like best!

Don’t underestimate the call for a grapefruit twist, as opposed to lemon or orange; it better aligns with the flavors and aromas of the drink. If you haven’t tried it already, this might be a good instance in which you compare the same drink with a different garnish and note the differences. 

Feel free to substitute Plymouth Gin with the London Dry variety. If you do, try going for some of the more intensely fragrant brands available to you.

British bartender Wayne Collins is credited with creating this drink circa 2001 in France while on a competition. He and his partner, the director of Plymouth Gin, felt a craving for a Negroni but wanted to use local, French ingredients instead of the Italian ones used on the traditional recipe (sans the gin, which they already had).

A slightly different story tells that it was more out of necessity: Collins purportedly ran out of Campari and vermouth and quickly ran to get substitutions with what was readily available to him in France.

This cocktail gained popularity after it was introduced to Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York, who added it to the menu. Initially, she had to smuggle Suze bottles into the United States as it was not imported at the time.