Happy Hour: Gandhi's Negroni

We all know that salt is a cook's best friend, and we’ve seen bartenders following suit, adding what James Beard called “one of our greatest culinary gifts” to their shakers. At the Other Room, a craft cocktail lounge in Nebraska and a 2015 semifinalist for our Outstanding Bar Program award, proprietor Jill Cockson adds a dash or two of her briny housemade Hawaiian red salt solution to her Gandhi’s Negroni. A riff on the classic combination of Campari, gin, and sweet vermouth, Cockson’s version uses Dutch genever, the heady, juniper-scented ancestor of gin, along with satisfying and bitter-sweet Amaro Averna, yielding an inspired and savory sipper. Get the recipe.

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Hilary Deutsch is editorial assistant at the James Beard Foundation. Find her on Instagram.