Venetian Aperol Spritz with Ice-Cold Prosecco and a Fat Orange Wheel

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

The 3-2-1 spritz as it's actually poured on a Venetian terrace at six o'clock: three parts cold prosecco, two parts Aperol, one splash of soda, over a glass packed with big ice and finished with a thick wheel of orange. The whole trick is temperature and order — everything freezing cold, wine in first so the bubbles carry the bitter orange up instead of collapsing under it. Ten minutes of prep, zero cooking, and a drink that tastes like a bar made it.

Ingredients

• 6 oz prosecco, extra dry or brut, thoroughly chilled
• 4 oz Aperol, chilled
• 2 oz club soda or sparkling mineral water, chilled
• 4 cups ice, large cubes preferred

• 1 navel or Cara Cara orange
• 2 large green olives, such as Castelvetrano (optional, the Venetian way)

• 1 bottle (750 ml) prosecco, chilled
• 2 cups Aperol, chilled
• 1 cup club soda, chilled
• 2 oranges, sliced into wheels

Instructions

1. At least 2 hours ahead, get everything genuinely cold: prosecco and club soda in the coldest part of the fridge (38–40°F), and the bottle of Aperol in the fridge too. A room-temperature spritz is a watery spritz, because you'll compensate with extra ice that melts fast.
2. Put two large wine glasses (a 12–16 oz stemmed balloon glass is ideal) in the freezer for 15 minutes, or fill them with ice water for 2 minutes, then dump.
3. Cut the orange crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick wheels — thick enough to stand up in the drink and perfume it, not thin enough to go limp. You need 2 wheels; save the rest.
4. Fill each chilled glass to the very top with ice. Overfilling is correct: tightly packed ice melts more slowly and keeps the drink at full strength. If you have 2-inch cubes or a clear cube from a directional-freeze tray, use them.
5. Pour 3 oz chilled prosecco into each glass first, letting it run down the inside wall so it doesn't foam over. Wine before liqueur is the Venetian order — the heavier Aperol then sinks through and mixes itself.
6. Add 2 oz Aperol to each glass. It will bloom down through the wine in ribbons; that's exactly what you want.
7. Top each with 1 oz club soda. Give one single slow lift-and-turn with a bar spoon — one full rotation, no more. Stirring hard kills the carbonation, and the point of a spritz is the fizz.
8. Slide an orange wheel down the inside of the glass so it stands upright against the ice, and add an olive on a pick if you want the salty Venetian counterpoint. Serve immediately, with something salty alongside — chips, olives, potato crisps.
9. To batch for 8: combine the Aperol and club soda in a pitcher and refrigerate up to 4 hours. When guests arrive, add the full bottle of chilled prosecco, stir once, and pour over ice-packed glasses, adding an orange wheel to each. Do not add the prosecco early — it goes flat within the hour.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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