The world’s "biggest selling" cocktail, the negroni, is in the spotlight this week.

Now in its tenth year, Negroni Week celebrates the Campari-based cocktail and helps bartenders and customers raise money for a noble cause. Cheddar News caught up with Andrea Sengara, Campari America’s VP of marketing, to get the history behind the pre-dinner drink and some fun ways to spruce up the classic version.

The story of the Negroni starts in 1919 when Florentine Count Camillo Negroni walked into a cafe in Florence to order a cocktail. He had just come back from London, where he was exposed more broadly to gin, which is obviously very popular in the UK. So he came back and ordered what was a classic cocktail at the time called the Americano, which is one part Campari and one part sweet vermouth with a splash of soda water.

But when he asked for it, because he had just came back from London, he asked if they could replace the soda water with gin. It became one part Campari, one part sweet vermouth and one part gin. Typically Americanos are garnished with a lemon peel, and instead he gave it an orange peel for a garnish. After that customers started coming into the bar asking for a Americano, the Negroni way.

Campari is an iconic Italian red liquor. It has an unmistakable, pleasant, bitter flavor. That is a result of a complex blends of herbs and spices. Orange is a predominant flavor and you'll notice that we garnish most of our drinks with an orange in it to pay homage to that. It’s an aperitif, meant to be drunk before dinner.

The recipe for Campari is a very big secret. There is there is only one person — maybe two — at the company that actually knows the recipe. We have an Italian herbalist and master blender who knows the exact recipe of Campari. The product is 160 years old and the recipe has never changed.

Yeah, that's the whole concept of aperitivo culture! 

It started back in 2013, as a partnership between Imbibe Magazine and Campari to celebrate the world's best-selling cocktail, which is so exciting for all of us. People get to enjoy Negronis as well as participate in raising money for charitable causes. It started very grassroots in Portland, Oregon. It's grown from 120  bars and restaurants to over 2,000 in the U.S. so far this year, and we're looking at around 10,000 accounts across the world.

This year we have one global giving partner called Slow Food. They're a global movement of local communities and activists in more than 160 countries, and their mission is to create a world where everyone has access to good, clean, fair food and beverage.

We created the Slow Food Negroni Week Fund. It’ll go to directly supporting the Slow Food projects, in addition to the hospitality community grants in the name of preserving cultural and biological diversity and the promotion of food and beverage education and knowledge exchange between countries across the world.

The classic is one part Campari, one part 1757 Vermouth di Torino Rosso, and one part Bulldog Gin. But you just need Campari and you need vermouth, and then you can create a fun Negroni version for yourself based on whatever else you sort of have and other things that you enjoy.

Definitely recommend you try Negroni made by a bartender, and then definitely try having fun with it at home. But if you’re looking for a little bit more guidance, we actually launched a Negroni ready to drink. It's a really easy way to compare what you make to the iconic classic recipe.