In the Land of Cocktails

Our Guest (International) Cocktail Chick Reports from Italy!

Posted by on July 9th, 2010

Our lovely Cock­tail Chicks cor­re­spon­dent, Stacey Sala­m­one, went to Italy for two weeks (lucky gal) and reported back.  We’ll be post­ing her trav­el­ogues in the upcom­ing weeks.  Here’s the first from Stacey…

I arrived in Rome and was dri­ven directly to Umbria by my lovely friends Clau­dia & Mas­simo. The trip was 2 1/2 hours.  We arrived at Le Torri Di Bag­nara in Pieve San Quirico, Peru­gia — Italy.  I thought I had stepped into heaven.
This is the site for the resort   http://www.letorridibagnara.it/inglese.

On my first evening sit­ting out at the infin­ity pool with a view of charm­ing vil­lage hav­ing an Aperol Spritz.

Aperol Spritz
.    3 ounces Aperol
.    1 ounce Pros­ecco
.    1 ounce club soda
.    One slice blood orange

In an ice-filled rocks glass, stir together the Aperol, Pros­ecco and club soda. Gar­nish with the blood orange.

In the bustling city of Peru­gia, Sat­ur­day is a night to stroll on the main street. We stopped in the lovely place. To my sur­prise, it was a com­bi­na­tion bar, pas­try shop, tapas spot.  Grappa & cook­ies, what an inter­est­ing place, to sit & watch the people.

From their site:
San­dri, the old­est umbrian confectioner’s shop, men­tioned in “Locali storici d’Italia” and in Newsweek’s “World’s Best Bars”, started its activ­ity in the first half of 1800. Those were the years of the Italy’s Uni­fi­ca­tion and the Swiss cit­i­zen Jachen Shu­can came to Peru­gia bring­ing his culi­nary art from the other side of Alps.

The name “San­dri” has been used since 1920 when the shop was man­aged by Nicola Zon­der, a swiss cit­i­zen grown in Italy and forced by the gov­er­ment to “ital­ian­ize” his sur­name.  He came, as vol­un­tary pro­tec­tor, to save the inher­i­tance of Guglielmo, the young son of his dead friend Clau­dio.  In fact, Guglielmo’s real pro­tec­tors, the ones cho­sen by the tri­bunal, were quickly going to squan­der his inher­i­tance.

In 1860, Peru­gia main street, not yet ded­i­cated to Pietro Van­nucci, is chang­ing appearence: ware­houses and store-rooms are replaced by shops which sell and expose goods. 

Jachen Schu­can, who changed his name to Gia­como Schu­cani, find a per­fect place for his shop where once you could find Palazzo della Crogna’s sta­bles: a long and nar­row room placed where has been for cen­turies Perugia’s prom­e­nade.

Rossini
Named for the com­poser of the Bar­ber of Seville
•    2 oz straw­berry juice or straw­berry puree
•    4 oz Proseco

1.    Pour the straw­berry juice or straw­berry puree into a cham­pagne flute.
2.    Slowly add the Proseco.

On the upper ter­race of the of Le Torri di Bag­nara, with a view of the medieval bell tower, which has apart­ments that can be rented.  The roses on the prop­erty
were gor­geous.  The weather was mild, no humid­ity, dif­fi­cult to believe it was Summer.

- Stacey Salamone