Making A Negroni Like Stanley Tucci

As the Shelter-In-Place requirements linger, anyone with any imagination is required (by law, I think) to imagine a dystopian world to come, where we’ve descended into a loose affiliation of warring kingdoms or houses, like Game of Thrones but with fewer dragons.

You know who came out on top, at least on the TV series? Tyrion Lannister, the man who drinks and knows things, who ended as the Hand of the new king, Bran the Broken.

So if I write about drinking and knowing things, that’s totally acceptable. Plus, I never killed my father with a crossbow while he was using the facilities.

Drinking and knowing things are a great way to spend time during a pandemic. And right now, all such drinking-and-knowing discussions have to start with the famous Stanley Tucci Negroni video on Instagram.

I mean, really.

Now, none of us can actually be Stanley Tucci. I doubt even Stanley Tucci can be quite so Stanley Tucci every day. I’m sure there are days he has a hangnail or gets a parking ticket or can’t quite get that earworm out of his head at will.

But we’ll always have his Negroni video, an anchor of smoldering reassurance in a world gone mad.

And you too can make a Negroni like Stanley Tucci.

Ingredients Needed:

• Ideally, be Stanley Tucci
• If you’re not Stanley Tucci, be bald and own it, wear slacks and a black collared polo shirt
• Gin
• Campari
• Sweet Vermouth – but not this vermouth. Shudder. Have some respect for yourself. If you can, import house vermouth from one of the tapas bars in Barcelona in the Poble Sec neighborhood, because why settle for plebian stuff?
• And heaven help you if you use dry vermouth
• An orange slice. Optional, in case your shelter-in-place Instacart sprees have somehow omitted to include oranges
• A slow, knowing smirk

Preparation:

• Don your slacks, belt included (assuming you can still find your belt after a month of sheltering-in-place; Zoom doesn’t show you from the waist down)
• Tuck in a black collared polo shirt; be sure to have nice biceps and forearms (critical; if you need to, work out for six months before tackling a Negroni)
• Check your head. Are you bald? Do you own it? If not, shave it, own it. Wait several months until you’ve had enough online therapy to own your baldness before tackling a Negroni
• Drink a glass of bourbon. It won’t make you as suave as Stanley Tucci, but it will let you play him in your kitchen
• While a Negroni doesn’t technically need a shaker, you need one to make it like Tucci. Add ice to the shaker. It helps if you have a classy shaker in rose-gold
• Add two shots of gin, one shot of campari, one shot of vermouth. Pop that lid back in the gin bottle like you mean it. It’s a period, not a question mark. You’re not asking, “Am I done with this? I’m not sure?” No. You’re done with that noise.
• Shake it like you mean it. It would be even better if you shake it like Stanley Tucci means it
• Smirk like everyone’s watching
• For the coup de grâce, serve it in a coupe glass. We might be in a pandemic, but we’re not heathens. Need one? Check here.

Virgin Version:

If you watched the Instagram video, you already know there’s no such thing as a virgin Stanley Tucci Negroni.