The Cynar Spritz Is the Ugly Duckling of Summer

For those who choose their cocktails based on TikTok hot takes, the Hugo Spritz — a mix of St. Germain, Prosecco, and club soda — seems to be the official drink of summer, at least as evidenced by countless #drinktok comment threads. But mention the Hugo Spritz to a bartender, and you’ll get a pretty standard response: an eye roll.  

“If you would have asked me maybe five, seven years ago, I would have probably had a more favorable opinion of [the Hugo Spritz],” says Amina Cochran, a bartender at Little Dom’s, a crowd-favorite Italian spot in Los Angeles. “But now, my palate has had more experience with amaros and liqueurs.”

It’s Cochran who first turned me onto a drink for the anti-sweet set, or what you could call the industry’s drink of summer: the Cynar Spritz.

The Cynar Spritz tastes something like an adult Coca-Cola, like if a Coke could kick you in the teeth. Made with everyone’s favorite artichoke-based amaro, Cynar, as well as prosecco and club soda, once in the glass, it looks kind of like oxidized dirt.

Despite its unremarkable appearance, the drink is universally intriguing. By the time I finished my first round at Little Dom’s, six people had asked what I was having, and promptly ordered their own. Riffs on the Cynar spritz are also making the rounds on menus across the U.S. and Europe from the classic at Via Carota in New York to Ombra’s “spritz fagio” (Cynar plus Campari) in London to a Cynar and bitter lemon soda combination at La Bande in the Proper Hotel, San Francisco. 

A few weeks later, during brunch service, I watched Little Dom’s beverage director D. Lanzet approach a table of regulars drinking Aperol spritzes, and place a shot of Cynar in front of each of them. “We can make a spritz with this,” Lanzet says. One woman hesitated, then took a conservative sip. “Oh! it’s really interesting,” she said. 

“I do that [with Cynar] probably once every other week,” Lanzet tells me. “Exposing a guest to something new and unfamiliar doesn’t have to be intimidating; it can be surprising, sure, but also accessible and nourishing. Cynar's got a vegetable, an artichoke, on its label — and drinking bitter vegetables is not everyone’s idea of a good time. But Cynar is not overly vegetal — it’s herbaceous and bitter and a touch sweet.”  

At The Capri Club, a buzzy new LA bar that specializes in Italian amari and aperitifs, beverage director Pete St. Pete credits Cynar with turning her into an Italian liqueur fanatic. “Cynar was my gateway amaro,” she says. “It’s bitter, sweet, viscous. It’s just weird enough that it can make anyone fall in love with amaro. Then, once you figure out their palette, you can take them on a journey [through others].” 

St. Pete and Cochran also credit the murky hue. “After years of pop color drinks, there’s something eye-grabbing about that Cynar brown in a glass at the bar,” says St. Pete. 

“Aperol has that identifiable flirty flame orange color. It’s not that Aperol is feminine, but it’s been gendered in the zeitgeist of spritz girl summers past,” says Lanzet. “Aperol played varsity tennis, went to NYU, moved to Connecticut, has a nuclear family, and still uses her Vera Bradley dopp kit. She’s that friend who gets along with everyone, but sometimes her sweetness is too much. Cynar is the both/and amaro, if you will — the non-binary babe where the extraordinary is on edge with the ordinary.”  

Part of the Cynar Spritz’s appeal has to do with the classic fear of missing out. “Most of us are familiar with an Aperol or Campari Spritz, and then you see someone with a similar drink, but it has this malty, cola shimmer,” says Cochran. “You want to know what it is and why you aren’t drinking it.”

It’s early enough in the season that we’re all rejoicing in warmer days, brighter weather, and sweeter spritzes, but when we’re in the midst of an August heat wave, draping half-naked bodies over our AC window units, St. Germain and Aperol won’t quench our collective thirst. Give us instead their black swan cousin. The Cynar Spritz is our reminder that life is about contrast — its bitterness will make even the smoggiest, hottest Saturday afternoon feel sweeter.