Prosecco

Compromises are odious. They reek of disappointments both large and small, when no one really gets his way — there’s never a loser per se, but also rarely a winner. But very occasionally, seemingly disparate concepts can come together and create a new thing that is technically a compromise but ends up feeling like more than the sum of its parts, thanks to felicitous, and often impossible to predict, synergies. See: the bánh mì sandwich, the Constitution of the United States, Disney and Pixar. And now: Prosecco. The world’s favorite cheap, cheerful, reliably tasty tipple is dipping its toes into profundity — and the results are surprisingly successful.

Cocktails, for all their pleasures, rarely become memes. And yet, a variant of the Negroni did that last year, during the press tour for the Game of Thrones spin-off, House of the Dragon. When Olivia Cooke asked her co-star, Emma D’Arcy, what their favorite summer drink is, they replied: “Negroni sbagliato,” before flirtatiously adding, “with Prosecco in it.” Cooke’s response — “Ooh, stunning!” — turned the charming interaction into a viral moment. Bars were subsequently inundated with orders for them. For those unfamiliar, the Negroni is a classic Italian summer cocktail consisting of equal parts of gin (I recommend Bombay Sapphire), Campari and sweet vermouth (preferably Martini & Rossi). A dash of orange aromatic bitters is also a nice touch.