Drinkable politics, irony at the Festa dell'Unità: “Giani Tonic”, “LimoncElly” and “Spumantellassi”

Florence, June 25, 2025 – “ Giani Tonic with ice, please.” Thirty seconds later, the barman puts the drink on the wooden shelf. “Here you go, dear.” It’s not like we use formal terms of address between “comrades,” we’re still at the Festa dell’Unità . Only in Empoli, the Young Democrats have “made things weird.” The irreverence with which the “piddini” have renamed their leaders is brilliant. After all, in Prato the first political laboratory of the campo largo has just blown up, in Fiesole there’s no celebration due to “lack of volunteers,” better to dilute the bitterness with sips of… Well, objectively, there’s an embarrassment of choice when browsing the list hanging at the kiosk-bar, a bit like the all-flavors-plus-one sweets that Harry Potter lovers have learned to taste. The funny thing is that the Gd have gone as far as stickers to stick on the drink with lots of caricatures. How can you not mention him first, Eugenio Giani. The ultra-pop governor, just like gin and tonic: cult classic, timeless, good for all seasons, thirst-quenching. The only thing missing from the toast is the green light from Nazareno for the second candidacy. In the meantime, Giani is laughing, glass in hand, feeding the Gd's social media. Speaking of Nazareno, it's called LimoncElly , and it's the digestive par excellence, the liqueur flavored with lemon peel with that hint of acidity needed to swallow any squabble: from the cubed ambitions of the sheriff De Luca in Campania, to the gastritis of the reformist wing, up to the embarrassment for the tolling of "moral question" carved by the 5s once the Bugetti boil burst. Maybe something stronger is needed to manage the uproar in the second Pd stronghold in Tuscany between now and the by-elections, like a rummettino (watered down with Coca-Cola ) that harks back to Cuba's independence from the Spanish. Don't worry, there's the Fossi Libre , in honor of Emiliano, secretary of via Forlanini. The touch of class? The Sex on the Bonac ci ni . No offense, the most aesthete of all. The vodka-based long drink with notes of peach, blueberry and orange, as the culmination of the electoral look patented in 2020. The Empoli trio is not missing from the roll call: the effervescence guaranteed by the Spumantessi , with its perlage worthy of a class-of-95 mayor, the anti-heat ensured by its predecessor Barnini, with the Birra Brenda . Plus the mainstream cocktail among the aficionados of regional councilor Enrico Sostegni: the Spritzegni . “CattivElly” those Gd who insisted on Salvini's Negroni , 'wrong' squared: better the mint leaves in the mojito, green like the Lega at Papeete, rather than the dark red of the vermouth at the Festa dell'Unità in Empoli. Different times compared to the prophecy of the mayor of Berkeley to the communist mayor of Piombino Fabio Mussi: "In the US they hold conferences that seem like circuses, you hold parties that seem like conferences".