The quiet reinvention of Ligurian gastronomy doesn’t stop at the plate. It is also on a crusade to convert Happy Hour.
In our preceding article Liguria on a Plate, we looked at this summer’s food trends just across the French-Italian border. Today we want to know what summer drinks our neighbours enjoy.
Liguria has never been a place that mistakes sweetness for sophistication. Its best flavours have always leaned toward the briny, the herbal, the citrus peel – the slightly stern pleasure of things that taste of rugged mountain terrain and a wild, unspoiled coast. And this summer’s drinks scene follows in the footsteps of the Ligurian cuisine which has started reclaiming its authenticity.
The result is a small but unmistakable shift. Across bars, aperitivo counters, and festival lists, Liguria is producing drinks that have a lot more personality than the usual Mediterranean blur of ice, prosecco, and decorative fruit. What at first glance reads like ingredients for a seaside main course – basil, sage, mint, seaweed, anchovy, mussels, chinotto fruit, or grapefruit – is not a recipe but the region’s boldly assumed vocabulary on the drinks menu.
Bitter, not Stirred
The most obvious current is bitterness, which is entirely appropriate in a region where even the scenery has an edge. Or, more precisely, a bitter-fruity tartness. Chinotto has had a bit of a hard time overcoming the stigma of an eponymous brand name for a sickly sweet fizzy soft drink. But once people started reassociating it as a tangy citrus fruit, it moved from niche curiosity to useful summer staple, and it now appears in aperitivi that are sharper, greener, and considerably more interesting than the standard Aperol spritz. The best of these lemony drinks carry basil or mint alongside the chinotto, a combination that belongs together like an old married couple.
Video via @stranger_drinks_ on YouTube
That pairing works because it tastes like Liguria itself. Chinotto brings the citrus bitterness, basil brings the coastal herbaceousness, and the whole thing lands somewhere between an aperitivo and a botanical portrait. The updated versions often lean low in alcohol or entirely alcohol-free, which suits the season and the setting. These drinks are made for heat, for terraces, and for people who have grown weary of syrup pretending to be character.
Decanting the Sea
La Spezia has been the most explicit in turning the coast into a drinkable idea. This summer, cocktails built with marine ingredients are all the rage: algae tinctures and anchovy colatura pair with tomato, fig, and of course the citrus-basil couple, as if a creative bartender had concocted the new drinks menu while sitting by the harbour.
One of the creations that is sure to stir attention is a gin cocktail called “Belin che Muscoli”, a name that is, simultaneously, a Genoese expletive, a boast about muscles, and a reference to the muscoli (mussels) that La Spezia’s Gulf of Poets has been farming for generations. Its playful title comes from the thin mussel-water foam that crowns the drink. And come to think of it, that foam is no different from what gets slurped down with seafood all the time…
Photo by Alyona Yankovska on Unsplash, licenced under the Unsplash License
These drinks do something that many regional cocktails fail to do: they taste territorial. Not “inspired by the sea” in some vague holiday-resort manner, but directly shaped by the sea’s salty bounty. Liguria has always understood brine, and the region’s food already treats the sea as a pantry rather than a backdrop. The new drinks, crisp and saline, simply extend that logic into the aperitivo hour. Their job is not to impress but to represent a place that lives with boats, shellfish, drying nets, and an appetite for bracing flavours.
Rx: A Herbal Cocktail
If the Ligurian Sea contributes iodine to the drinks menu, the hinterland doesn’t want to come in second best. Its botanical treasures bring an earthy note to the party, and chances are they are already in people’s kitchens or gardens: herbs. And bonus points for the real medicinal properties that these greens possess.
Basil is the obvious star, but it has learned to share the stage. Sage, rosemary, lemon thyme, mint, lavender, and the wild berries that grow on every Ligurian footpath – they all add their own personality to a cocktail, no recipe needed. Sometimes paired with white wine or rosé, prosecco, or even just sparkling water, add a good helping of crushed ice, and there you have it: a light and refreshing summer drink. Who needs a tumbler of something sweet and tropical, with high-percentage alcohol, and garnished with miniature umbrellas and candied cherries, when a handful of local herbs fits seamlessly into the natural décor and carries more character than the entire cocktail menu of a five-star resort?
Photo by Chinh Le Duc on Unsplash, licenced under the Unsplash License
If you now argue that there have always been mojitos with mint and pimm’s with basil – yes, but that’s not what Ligurian summer drinks are all about. They are low in alcohol and sugar, herb-forward, and resist the temptation of throwing a dash of every bottle on the shelf into them. Like the local cuisine, they focus on a couple of key ingredients and let those shine.
A Renewed Sense of Culinary Values
The most striking thing about the current moment is not any single drink, but the way the region is beginning to treat its liquid culture as part of the same holistic conversation around its food. That is a meaningful shift. Liguria’s kitchen has already rediscovered the value of herbs, underused fish, local produce, and the practical intelligence of traditional flavours. The drinks now follow the same route, only with more ice.
The result is an aperitivo culture that feels more grounded and less generic than the standard Riviera offer. Instead of copying the mainstream summer template, Liguria is creating its own blueprint, which is exactly what a serious food and drink culture should do.
Photo by Marita Mones on Unsplash, licenced under the Unsplash License
Sipping a cocktail on a shaded terrace is one of summer’s great pleasures! Please enjoy responsibly.
PHOTO CREDITS
- Lead image by Svitlana on Unsplash, licenced under the Unsplash License
- All other images and video as credited
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