If you want to taste history tonight, I've already prepared the complete shopping list with all the ingredients. Now, the legend.
The Spritz has surprisingly foreign roots. In the early 19th century, during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Veneto, Austrian soldiers found Italian wines too strong and asked innkeepers for a "spritzen", a German word meaning "to spray", referring to a splash of water added to soften the wine. The modern version, with Aperol or Campari and prosecco, took shape in Padua and Venice in the 20th century.
The real turning point was the 2003 marketing campaign by the Campari Group, which bought Aperol and pushed the Spritz as an easy-drinking national icon. Within a decade it had become the unofficial symbol of Italian aperitivo culture worldwide, and today more than 300 million Spritzes are served every year.
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