Super Cattivo

Super Cattivo is a project that grew out of a friendship. Its founders and makers, Tristan Hanzl and Daniel Möhler, met working at the New York City Austrian restaurant called Wallse in 2010—Daniel is originally from northern Germany; Tristan from Burgenland in Austria. Once the duo returned to Europe, they’d often meet to travel, eat, and drink together. Daniel tells the tale: “we liked drinking low-intervention wines whenever we met, as well as spritzes and negronis. This was especially true when we’d meet and go on trips to Liguria. At some point, we were looking to substitute the big industrial products like Campari, but there wasn’t anyone in Europe offering anything similar without the chemicals.”

The duo had a particular ah-ha moment in Apricale, a tiny mountain village in Liguria, where they were served an aperitivo that made them want to create one themselves. There, Daniel and Tristan had befriended an local woman named Jiulanda (now 86 years old); she had been making her own aperitivo for years and showed them some of her traditional techniques. From there, the pair started experimenting with their own recipes and it developed into a real project.