The Spread of the Spirit

The Guardian reports that the Hugo cocktail, an elderflower concoction, is snapping at the heels of Aperol in Britain's summer of spritz. The numbers are striking: a drink that barely existed a decade ago now rivals the orange bitters that defined Italian leisure for generations. We take no position in this bar fight, but we note what it signifies.

Italy's exports have always been double: the goods themselves and the way of life they imply. Aperol, Campari, limoncello — these are not merely beverages but ambassadors of a particular hour of the day, the pausa, the ritual of sitting outdoors as the light softens. That the Hugo, born in the Italian-speaking Alps of South Tyrol, now leads this charge is a small irony: the newcomer is itself Italian, and the competition is a family affair.

The world's appetite for these drinks, as the Guardian's business desk observes, is a form of soft power that no government can direct. While Rome and Madrid trade accusations over border checks, the British are toasting with our bitters and our elderflower. The image is not frivolous. It suggests that the country the world argues about is not the country it consumes.

We should not overstate the matter. A cocktail trend is a minor current in the vast stream of commerce and politics. But it is a pleasant one, and it carries a lesson. The Italy of the international press is often a place of crisis and friction; the Italy of the international palate is a place of ease and invention. Both are real, and both deserve their place in our pages.

Let the spritz flow, then, in London and Manchester and wherever the sun sets late. It is a small reminder that the world's affection for this peninsula is not always expressed in headlines, but sometimes in a raised glass.