The Spritz Is Older Than You Think (And Newer Than You Think)

The Aperol Spritz feels like it's been the official drink of Italian summer forever. It hasn't. The version everyone knows today is barely 20 years old, even though the idea behind it goes back much further than that.

The actual origin traces back to 19th-century Veneto, when Austrian soldiers occupying northern Italy found local wine too strong and started cutting it with a splash of soda water, "spritzen" being German for "to splash." That's genuinely where the name comes from. Over time, Italians started adding a bitter liqueur to that wine-and-soda base, and the modern spritz idea, bitter plus bubbles plus a splash, was born.

Aperol itself dates back to 1919, but it wasn't always the star. For most of the 20th century, spritz recipes leaned more heavily on stronger, more bitter aperitifs, and the drink stayed a regional Northern Italian habit, mostly unknown outside Veneto.

What actually changed it into the drink people know now

Sometime in the 2000s, the ratio shifted. Bartenders and brands started favoring a lighter formula, more prosecco, less bitter liqueur, which made the drink brighter, lower in alcohol, and easier to drink through an entire afternoon. That lighter version is what caught on globally and turned into the orange drink now associated with Italian summer, rooftop bars, and every restaurant menu from June through September.

Why the glass actually matters here

A spritz is mostly about aeration and temperature. The wider bowl gives the prosecco room to stay lively instead of going flat too fast, and a proper stem keeps hands off the bowl, so the drink doesn't warm up in the first five minutes. A NUDE Ghost Zero White Wine Glass does both of these better than a standard rocks or highball glass, which is part of why the shape stuck around even as the recipe evolved.

So next time a spritz feels like an old tradition, it's worth knowing it's really a fairly modern reinvention of an old idea, one that didn't fully take its current shape until sometime in the last 20 years.