All-Australian negroni made from local heroes
A homegrown version of Campari has made possible an all-Australian mix of a classic cocktail.
Oh, how I have been looking forward to this. Ever since the artisan Australian gin craze took off a few years ago — followed by the artisan Australian vermouth craze — I’ve been waiting for some enterprising local booze producer to come out with a homegrown alternative to Campari. Why? Because then we’d have all three ingredients for an all-Australian negroni — and how cool would that be?
Well, now my dream is real. Just before Christmas, Brendan and Laura Carter from Applewood Distillery in the Adelaide Hills (the pair produce wines under the Unico Zelo label) released the first batch of a deep red-coloured, 26 per cent alcohol “amaro” bitter liqueur they call Red Okar. They also launched a sibling amaro simply called Okar: paler in colour and only 12 per cent alcohol, it’s the “Aperol”, if you like, to Red Okar’s “Campari”.
I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard about these two new drinks. And how upset I was when I discovered that every bottle of the first batch was snaffled by keen Adelaide bar owners and mixologists. And then how doubly excited when
I discovered a bottle of each had made its way to Bad Frankie, one of my favourite Melbourne bars, and purveyor of exclusively Australian-made booze.
So, one pleasant sunny afternoon last week I took a seat at Bad Frankie while owner and chief drink-slinger Seb Costello worked his magic.
First, we tried them neat. Both the Okar and Red Okar are made with riberry, an indigenous subtropical fruit, as the main botanical, along with aromatic ingredients such as orange peel and lemon myrtle, and bittering agents such as cinchona bark and gentian root. The Red Okar is stronger, bolder, more bitter, with a lifted, herbal, eucalypt perfume; the Okar is lighter, softer, with citrusy, almost pink grapefruit character. Both the liquids were cloudy: Brendan Carter tells me he’s still finetuning the recipe and ultimately aims to make them crystal clear; the flavour is not affected, only the aesthetic appeal.
Then, in a large wine glass filled with ice, Seb made a spritz by blending the lighter Okar with sparkling white wine and mineral water. It looked like pink grapefruit juice, and was refreshing and citrusy.
Staying in the refreshment groove, we then tried Red Okar with soda: some complex booze chemistry gave the drink a remarkable magenta opalescent appearance (Carter puts this down to the terpenes in the botanicals), and, again, the bubbles gave a lovely lift to the perfume.
And then it was time for my first all-Australian negroni: equal parts Red Okar, Maidenii sweet vermouth and Four Pillars gin. The verdict? Delicious and surprisingly mellow, given all the intensely aromatic and bitter ingredients involved.
Okar and Red Okar have only just launched, and don’t have wide distribution. Hopefully, you can expect them in bars and independent bottle shops over the next few months, but in the meantime, purchase them direct from the producer for $25 and $39 respectively. applewooddistillery.com.au