2005-08-23 - 12:26 p.m.

On the boat, my brother ordered a Long Island Iced Tea.

"Do you have any Campari?" I asked the bartender.

"Sure," he said, rummaging around under the counter and bringing out a precious red bottle of the bitter stuff.

"Can I get a Negroni?"

"Straight up?"

"Negroni?" I wasn't prepared for the bartender actually knowing what a Negroni was. Many of them don't.

"Straight up?" he said, a little louder.

"Oh, yeah."

My (younger) brother was carded. I rummaged around for my driver's license.

"Oh no," said the bartender, "I never card anyone who orders a Negroni.

The Negroni cocktail is a divine mixture of equal parts bitter Campari, sweet vermouth, and gin. All ingredients are shaken together with ice and strained out into a chilled martini glass and garnished with a twist of lemon.

It's a complex taste - it has the bite of Campari and the cloying sweetness of the vermouth, with good, dependable gin providing a strong base and a hint of juniper. Drinking a Negroni makes you feel torchy and avant-garde, like an album put out by Frank Sinatra and John Cage. In fact, the Negroni is a lot like my most favorite bands - the first taste inspires either intense curiosity or intense revulsion.

My friend Christine has created a series of business cards with the recipe for a Negroni printed on, for those of you who frequent bars where the Negroni is unpopular or unknown.

And in case you're wondering, the Negronis I had on the boat were very, very good.