A signature cocktail is a drink created by and closely associated with a particular bar, hotel, restaurant or event, served as a kind of liquid business card.
One of the most elegant examples comes from Venice. In 1948 Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of Harry’s Bar, puréed small white peaches, which he preferred to the yellow kind, and topped them with prosecco. He named the drink after Giovanni Bellini, the fifteenth-century Venetian painter he admired, and the Bellini became the house drink of Harry’s Bar and later of every Cipriani restaurant.
The idea has since spread far beyond hotel bars: weddings now christen a drink after the couple, brands create one for a launch and festivals print theirs on the wristband. The best ones share the Bellini’s lesson, which is to be simple, seasonal and impossible to order anywhere else without mentioning where it came from.