In the heart of Bassano del Grappa, the Camazzola brothers preserve the liquid memory of the art of drinking: from absinthe to futuristic cocktails
A liquid memory that risked dissolving, alchemical formulas that have fallen into oblivion for decades now, recipes that once marked evenings of intellect but also of idleness and transgression. At the Palazzo delle Misture in Bassano del Grappa, the brothers Gianluca and Andrea Camazzola have made the rediscovery a manifesto: among vaulted ceilings and polished glass, not only are drinks served, but a kind of philology rite applied to the glass is celebrated. It is the deep respect for history, and the desire to preserve something beautiful and good.
The archeology of the cocktail
The story begins in 2010, when the two Bassano bartenders transformed the ancient Monte di Pietà (a building from 1494, with the historic city coat of arms of the rampant lions) into an experimental laboratory of “mixological culture”. The permanent Symposium on the history of mixing was born herean assembly of enthusiasts (perhaps even a little crazy, but obviously in a positive sense) who met every Friday to translate ancient texts, reconstruct lost formulas, give voice to forgotten bartenders. «The first written references to liquid recipes appear in the 18th century», explains Gianluca, 57 years old, «then the official texts arrive in the second half of the 19th century». From that not extensive but extremely precious bibliography, an entire universe emerges: the pre-prohibition era (archaic, baroque, classical), the prohibition period between 1920 and 1933, up to the liberalism of contemporary mixology. A real Atlantis, which re-emerges giving patrons new flavors and journeys back in time.
When absinthe was poetry
The Palace menu opens with a chapter on absinthe, the fee verte which spans the Belle Époque and the twentieth century between myth and censorship. Since 2016 the place has been the headquarters of the Italian Association for the Protection of Absinthe, committed to promoting the best national references of a too often misunderstood distillate. We continue with the endangered recipes, «almost a parallel with what certain winemakers do with native vines», where each sip tells the culture of a place and a historical moment.
More legendary cocktails
Among the treasures exhumed is Lo «spray»a philological version of the spritz dyed red in opposition to the Austrian rulers, as witnessed by the writer Alberto Toso Fei. There is the Brooklyn Cocktails of the early twentieth century, theOld Pal (traced since 1878, possible ancestor of the Negroni), and even the bizarre multi-drinks published by Marinetti and Filia in «Futurist Cuisine» from 1932: anti-bourgeois and disruptive formulas that today would make even the most avant-garde bartenders pale.
Managed together with bar manager Luka Begagic and bartenders Andrea Andrighetto and Marco Marangon, Palazzo delle Misture is not just a cocktail bar, but a living archive. Where each glass holds a liquid poetry forgotten and finally returned to memory.
