How to make a spritz: Habsburg history in a glass

A glass of white wine with a splash of sparkling water. That was the original spritz: a habit of Austrian soldiers stationed in the Veneto during the nineteenth century who found the local wine too strong to drink all day. The gesture has a name: spritzen, to splash in German. Two centuries later, that imperial trick has become one of Europe's best-selling aperitivi, but it no longer contains just water.

The Austrian occupation and Venetian wine

The story begins around 1800, when the Veneto was part of the Austrian Empire. Soldiers, civil servants and merchants from Vienna, Innsbruck or Graz arrived to find local white wines—prosecco, soave—that had more body and alcohol than they were used to. The solution was simple: add a little sparkling mineral water to cut the alcohol and stretch the drink. Thus was born the spritz bianco, white wine with water, served cold in Venetian osterie.

Historians agree on the Austrian origin, but there are no documents recording an exact date or the name of the first soldier who asked for water in his glass. What is clear is that the habit stayed after the Veneto became part of Italy in 1866. By then, the spritz was already a local drink.

From sparkling water to bitter: how the spritz evolved

Plain water didn't last long. In the early twentieth century, Italian houses began producing bitter aperitifs based on herbs, roots and citrus: Select (red, Venetian, from 1920), Aperol (orange, from Padua, from 1919) and Campari (deep red, Milanese, slightly older). All were mixed with soda or vermouth, and it was natural that someone would try replacing the water in a spritz with a bitter. The result: a more complex, bitter and bright aperitivo, with colour.

For decades, the spritz remained a regional habit. It was ordered in Venice, Padua, Treviso, but not in Rome or Milan. That changed in the 1990s, when Aperol launched a campaign centred on the Aperol Spritz, with fixed proportions: three parts prosecco, two parts Aperol, a splash of soda, ice and an orange slice. It was a brilliant piece of marketing. Within a decade, the spritz went from being a Venetian custom to a European phenomenon.

Today it's served on terraces in Dublin, Manchester and London as much as in Verona. Each city has its version: the Hugo (prosecco, elderflower syrup, mint and lime) is more popular in the Alps; the spritz al bitter with Select remains the favourite in Venice. But all share the same structure: sparkling wine, something bitter or aromatic, bubbles, ice.

What a small food business can take from this

The story of the spritz is also a lesson in adaptation and commercial simplicity. Here are three practical ideas you can apply today:

A short drinks list sells more than a long one. The spritz succeeded because it has three ingredients, takes thirty seconds to make, and requires no shaker or technique. If you run a small bar, a summer terrace or a market stall with a licence, a menu of four well-made cocktails is better business than twenty mediocre ones. Less stock, less waste, more speed.
Clear proportions let you calculate the exact cost. The Aperol Spritz was standardised: 90 ml prosecco, 60 ml Aperol, a splash of soda. That means you can work out the cost per glass to the penny. Imagine you buy a 750 ml bottle of prosecco at £8 and a 700 ml bottle of Aperol at £14. One glass uses 90 ml of prosecco (£0.96) and 60 ml of Aperol (£1.20), plus ice, orange and soda at about £0.15. Total cost: around £2.30. If you sell it at £7.50, your gross margin is £5.20 per glass, and the ingredient cost is 31 per cent. That clarity lets you set your price with confidence and avoid giving away margin.
Telling the story adds value at no cost. A sign on the bar, a line on the menu, a remark from the server: 'The spritz started when Austrian soldiers watered down wine in Venice.' That sentence costs nothing and turns a glass of prosecco into a story the customer will repeat. People pay for context, not just liquid.

If you want to know exactly what each cocktail costs you and what margin you're left with, the Pricora analyzer helps you break down ingredients and compare prices in seconds.

Frequently asked questions

What is the original spritz recipe?

The original nineteenth-century spritz was simply white wine with a splash of sparkling water. The modern versions with Aperol, Campari or Select appeared in the twentieth century, when Italian bitter aperitifs became popular.

Is the spritz Venetian or Austrian?

The gesture of adding sparkling water to wine is Austrian; the word spritz comes from the German spritzen. But the drink developed and evolved in the Veneto, so today it is considered both Austro-Venetian in origin and Italian in identity.