What is an aperitif? A drink is often served at the start of a meal, also called an aperitif. Its purpose is to stimulate the appetite while waiting for the food to arrive. Aperitifs are also known as before dinner drinks. Traditional aperitifs include dry sparkling wines in addition to actual cocktails.
Shorter drinks can also be used as aperitifs: we're familiar with snaps, or food shots, which kick off many crayfish parties – accompanied by traditional drinking songs like Helan går, of course!
What kind of drink works as an aperitif?
An aperitif served before a meal should be dry, as something sweet might fill you up and take away your budding appetite.
Welcome toasts familiar from graduations and celebrations are a bit different from aperitifs that prepare you for a meal. Welcome toasts are for clinking glasses with guests and serve as social drinks, so they can be sweeter than actual aperitifs.
Different occasions and purposes call for different aperitifs. The season is also worth keeping in mind when choosing a suitable aperitif. What kind of aperitif should you consider this time?
For aperitifs that prepare you for a meal, bitter flavors and dry wines work particularly well, so try Crispy W2, Ginger Vodka Tonic or Rose B&G By My Ginger. In fall and winter, you can customize aperitifs to suit the season by flavoring them with cinnamon and apple, for example.
What aperitif would be a hit especially in spring and summer? Stylish spritzes familiar from terraces always hit the mark. The key ingredient in spritzes is the bright orange Italian orange-herb aperitif ArtSpritz. Its bitter taste nicely stimulates the appetite, and with ArtSpritz it's easy to create a spritz cocktail to your taste using just a couple of ingredients. We recommend, for example, the signature drink ArtSpritz, the Mediterranean Mediterranean Spritz or even F***ed up Mule, which includes ginger beer.
Sparkling wines are aperitif classics
Or does it feel like aperitifs take too much time and dinner is about to start any minute now? No worries – below you'll find a few recommendations for sparkling wines that work particularly well as aperitifs or welcome toasts.
For aperitifs to stimulate the appetite, we especially recommend the following sparkling wines, which are dry or extra dry: Crudo Prosecco, Katse Brut and Parés Baltà Brut b.
For welcome toasts and socializing, slightly sweeter wines also work if desired. For example, Italian Tosti offers a semi-sweet (Tosti Butterfly Demi Sec) and sweet (Tosti Asti Dolce) sparkling wine in addition to the dry (Tosti Prosecco Extra Dry). Choose yours!
Then just chill well, pop enthusiastically and serve in beautiful sparkling wine glasses. Cheers!
