Like many Italian cocktails, the Bombardino begins with a easy story that’s been repeated usually sufficient to have develop into legend.
Among the particulars are murky, however virtually everybody agrees that the drink was invented within the Nineteen Seventies in Livigno, a ski city bordering Switzerland, by a raise supervisor and lodge proprietor named Aldo Del Bò. At some point, the story goes, a gaggle of skiers staggered into his rifugio (mountain lodge) and requested for one thing to heat them up. Del Bò had been experimenting with a brand new concoction in his spare time, and so his supervisor, Erich Ciapponi, went behind the bar and made it for them.
Ciapponi heated up some Vov—an Italian egg-yolk liqueur akin to zabaglione, already standard among the many ski crowd within the space—spiked it with Scotch, after which topped the combination with chilly whipped cream. One of many first to style the brand new home drink reportedly exclaimed, “È una bomba!” (“It’s a bomb!”), due to its explosive energy.
The identify caught. And thus, the Bombardino—Italy’s ski-season staple—was born.
When the snow begins to stay every year, Italians make for the mountains. As they commerce the damp winter gloom of cities like Milan and Turin for lengthy days on the slopes, aperitivo turns into après-ski. The drinks, for essentially the most half, are the identical as within the cities—beer, wine and spritzes—apart from this one winter-only outlier.
The primary time I attempted a Bombardino was at Rifugio Palù within the Valtellina area. Getting there required a two-mile uphill hike by snow. I used to be chilly and exhausted and the lodge was in full après mode by the point I arrived. Skiers, snowboarders and hikers had stripped off high layers and packed the terrace to sip the drink from paper cups, so I opted for a similar. The Bombardino was a fast hit of boozy, high-calorie vitality.
To make the Bombardino, bartenders in the present day sometimes pour Vov (a Marsala-based egg liqueur made in Padua since 1845) or Zabov (a brandy-laced competitor made in Ferrara since 1946) into carafes with brandy—a twist from the unique that shortly turned the norm because the drink unfold throughout the Alps. They warmth the combination with the steam wand of an espresso machine and end it with a thick topping of canned whipped cream.
For many years, that recipe has barely modified, although there are variations, like a Calimero, which contains espresso, or a Pirata or Scozzese, which change brandy with rum and Scotch, respectively. And a few have put their very own spins on it, like Mirko Ferrari, bar supervisor at Ancora Cortina, a trendy and newly renovated 200-year-old resort in Cortina d’Ampezzo, host of the 2026 Olympics. The lodge provides each the basic and a model layered with biscuit-infused brandy, aged rum, raspberry sugar and white chocolate-flavored milk.
To seek out one of many extra distinctive variations, although, it’s a must to go to Lisbon. Each December, Basque-born Alf del Portillo and Italian enterprise accomplice Marta Premoli serve a Bilbao-meets-Milan spin on the Bombardino at their bar in Baixa, Quattro Teste.
Del Portillo says he didn’t encounter the drink within the Alps. He first got here throughout it years in the past in Bilbao, when an Italian common walked into his bar with a bottle of Vov and made one for him. “It warmed me up and gave me a sugar rush,” he says. “However I understood why these drinks are finest loved within the chilly mountains.”
Del Portillo and Premoli make their very own Vov liqueur utilizing much less sugar, constructed with dry Marsala, sherry and vermouth. To that, they add a peaty Scotch, chilly salted cream and grated tonka bean for nuttiness and distinction. “We attempt to be cultural ambassadors of the Basque nation and Italy,” del Portillo says. “This drink suits completely with what we do.”