Campari: the “futurist” bitter ($6 specialty cocktails every Weds @jaynesgastropub)

You may think of Campari as just another delicious ingredient in some of your (and our) favorite cocktails.

But Campari (technically a “bitter” in the classification of spirits) is perhaps the world’s most literary and artistic beverage.

In fact, it was the official drink of the Italian futurist movement, the earliest phase of the 20th-century avant-garde, whose members sought to cast off the chains of the neoclassical and baroque styles of European art and literature.

Above: Italian Futurist artist Depero’s 1931 Campari campaign (image courtesy GoAskAlice).

Futurist artists like Fortunato Depero not only created ad campaigns for the famous bitter but they also incorporated Campari into their own works of art, like that above. The distinctive triangular design for bottled “Campari and Soda” was created by Depero himself and is still used today in Italy.

Check out this post for some amazing spirits advertisements from the same era.

$6 specialty cocktails every Weds @jaynesgastropub.