How Aperol Created a Spritz Boom It Can’t Control | WSJ The Economics Of

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- This bubbly cocktail has taken over rooftop bars, outdoor restaurants, and your social media feed. It's the Aperol Spritz. Once a regional Italian before dinner liqueur, Aperol is now synonymous with one of the world's most recognizable cocktails. But

Aperol didn't expand like a typical spirits brand. The Campari Group exported a whole ritual from how the drink was made and served to where consumers encountered it. The Aperol Spritz now appears on 65% more US restaurant and bar

menus than it did four years ago. And the broader US Spritz category has grown more than 70% over the same period. - When you develop a category, you can't trademark a category. You will inevitably create competition. - So,

how did Aperol turn one orange bitter liqueur into a global phenomenon? And can it stay on top of the category it helped create? This is the economics of Aperol. For most of its over 100-year history, Aperol was a

regional liqueur rarely seen outside Northern Italy. Brothers Luigi and Sylvio Barbieri originally created a low alcohol bright orange aperitif which is traditionally served before a meal. By the 1950s, the Aperol Spritz had become the drink most associated with

the brand. - It kind of remained very local to that region for a long time. It was owned by a family business who had kind of no big designs on expanding it out too much. That began to change

in 2003 when Campari Group bought Aperol. - Campari really had the marketing strength as well as distributor relationships, and a network and logistics that could mean that Aperol could go from Northern Italy to the rest of the world.

- Aperol first started spreading across Europe, and in 2017, the Campari Group began investing heavily to scale the brand in the US. That bet paid off. Today, Aperol is Campari Group's largest individual brand, accounting for about a quarter

of the company's sales and generating about $900 million in 2025. - When you look at the history over 20 years, we went from 60 million Aperol Spritzes served to today annually, 1.5 billion Aperol Spritzes are served globally. -

But this newfound success came with a big question. How do you make sure a spritz in New York looks and tastes like one in Italy? Campari Group's answer? A universal ratio. - We call it three, two, one. So,

three parts Prosecco, two parts Aperol, one splash of soda, and then a garnish of orange. Another way to remember it is PASS, Prosecco, Aperol, Soda, Slice. - Even the order matters. Aperol is poured after the Prosecco to preserve

the drink's signature bright orange color and create a consistent looking spritz every time. But making the spritz simple was only part of the strategy. The Campari Group also invested in the people actually making and recommending the drink. Through

the Campari Academy, the company offers free education and training to bartenders, including how to properly make and serve drinks like the Aperol Spritz. - Most people get their drink recommendations from a bartender when they walk into the bar,

and we want bartenders to know all about our brands. - In the US, Campari has 21 brand ambassadors across 11 states. The company says it trained over 13,000 trade members on Aperol Spritz execution in 2025. In 2025, the

US Campari Academy had roughly 30,000 engagements via LIVE and digital events throughout the year. For Campari, that training is an upfront investment. Educate bartenders for free, and those bartenders can later help sell its products behind the bar. -

And it pays dividends for us because our share of the entrade business is quite large. - The simple recipe also works for the other side of the business, the bar itself. - You could probably make an Aperol Spritz

in 15 seconds. You kind of think it's like a minute per drink for a rate for kind of standard cocktails. In an Aperol Spritz, you're building in the vessel, which is, it saves you a whole step. Aperol is

priced at a fair level that you, it's affordable to mix with. That's the key for me as an operator is something that comes at a level that we can sell a cocktail for, you know, in New York City

in the $20 range, ideally under. We can do that with Aperol Spritz. - Campari used major cultural events to introduce Aperol to American drinkers, building branded experiences at festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza. - For drinks brands, showing up

at festivals is like the MVP of marketing. In a festival environment, you have a captive audience who are just looking to have fun and already are in the mindset of having a new experience. They're more likely to try

your drink, and therefore afterwards go back home and either like create demand, or they'll drive up sales if they liked your drink. - Free sampling is a key component. - It is a drink that you need to have

more than once. Like, bitter is earned. And so, it takes a couple times to get used to it. - In 2026, the company says it's on track to hand out nearly 100,000 Aperol Spritz samples at major events and

activations. As Aperol expanded, Americans were already starting to drink differently with growing interest in lower alcohol drinks. - People after the pandemic are starting to drink a little bit less. That's all created a trend towards lower ABV as

Gen Z are coming up and tending to drink a little bit less. So, Aperol can be positioned and is positioned by Campari as this lighter alternative. - And those habits were shifting earlier. 4:00 pm reservations are up 15%

year over year nationally, while reservations at 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm have declined. And once the drink was everywhere, pop culture amplified it. - I think the appearance of Aperol Spritz in pop culture was very much a reflection

of what was going on. You're connecting your brand with rich, good looking people is a positive association, and subconsciously or not, people wanna be like those people. So, that drives sales even further. - During "The White Lotus" Season

2, Aperol appeared in five episodes, and mentions of the brand on Twitter jumped nearly 25%. Part of that appeal was visual. Aperol's bright orange color, signature glass, and garnish made the drink instantly recognizable. - We've enjoyed such great

scalability and virality just from the color of the cocktail alone. - All of that helped Aperol make the spritz mainstream. But with all this attention came new competition. - It wasn't as if a spritz never existed before, but

Aperol, by creating such a recognizable branded drink, enormously developed the category. - Global spritz consumption grew from fewer than 2.5 billion servings in 2019 to nearly 4 billion in 2024. And now, competitors are chasing that growth. - Now

we have the Hugo Spritz, the Select Spritz, you have the Limoncello Spritz. There is so many on the menu now. If you go into any bar in the West Village on a Friday night, it's really become a category

of its own, and now Aperol has to step it up to compete. Right now, a lot of people are positioning the Hugo Spritz as the main competitor to Aperol Spritz. Hugo Spritz has been around for a long time,

but it's really only in the last couple of years that that drink has picked up in popularity, probably because of a rise in spritz culture, but also Bacardi is now putting a lot of marketing spend behind that St-Germain

brand. - Hugo Spritz is definitely something that's being called for, but still I would say, it's probably for every five Aperol Spritz, you get one request for Hugo Spritz. - For now, the challengers are still much smaller. Aperol

sold approximately 9.9 million nine-liter cases globally in 2025. Roughly 20 times the volume of some competitors. But Campari isn't waiting to see whether one catches up. It's expanding its own spritz portfolio, which includes Crodino, a non-alcoholic aperitivo, and

Sarti, a sweeter pink aperitivo launching in the US. - It's almost as if consumers are gonna move on beyond Aperol, they'd rather then go for another Campari product than a competitor's spritz. - Campari Group is also rolling out

new formats like cans and Aperol on tap to reach more consumers in drinking occasions. - With Aperol trying out these different formats in cans, on tap, it does take away from the core idea, which to have an Aperol

Spritz is to have a ritual and to have a beautiful thing in your hands. I think that is yet to be seen whether it will damage the brand down the line.