How to Drink Well Under Italian Quarantine
Eleven days and Four Bottles in the Hospital Parco de’ Medici.
I disembarked the white mini-van that had ferried me and five other unluckies from Fiumicino Airport. The drivers had played death metal the entire twenty-minute trip. They had no empathy for us. It was a job. They were just delivering goods, the goods being a group of Americans who had all tested positive for Covid at the airport. Under U.S. law in early June, we could not leave the country, but had to quarantine for seven days.
The smart and fortunate spent that time in digs of their own choosing. The less fortunate—those with no friends or family in the country, and limited financial means—were sent to the Covid hotel.
The Sheraton Parco de' Medici, a nothing-special hotel close to Fiumicino, had been converted by Roman authorities into a Covid hospital. It had all the charms of a minimum-security prison. The man checking us in stood behind plexiglass at the front desk. The lobby had been stripped of furniture. It looked like a construction site. I soon learned that the Parco de’Medici had also been stripped of everything that made a hotel livable. There was no ice machine. There was a barely working TV, with only a few German-language stations and the BBC coming in. You couldn’t order take-in.
My heart went out to my fellow residents, who had to contend with the barely edible meals that were delivered three times a day in a paper bag left outside their hotel door. I’m sure they all could have used a drink, but beer and wine were out of the question. I, however, was inadvertently prepared for the situation.
Like many bartenders and booze writers, I use my trips abroad to bring home spirits I can’t buy, or buy cheaply, in the United States. Our stash on this particular trip numbered nine bottles. Five had gone home with my wife, Mary Kate, who had tested negative for Covid at the airport, and was allowed to fly home.
My suitcase held four bottles. They were:
A bottle of Russiz Superiore pinot bianco wine from Friuli.
A bottle of Havana Club 3-year-old rum.
A bottle of Mulassano bianco vermouth, which was a mistake, since I had intended to buy the rosso.
And a bottled cocktail from the Roman restaurant Roscioli.
Though I was happy about this liquid advantage, my initial plan was that all the booze in my luggage would stay intact and make it home safely to the United States.
By the second night, I realized that plan was unrealistic.
My first reaction to testing positive had been rage. Rage at the whole stupid, ignorant, selfish world. I had successfully avoided getting Covid for more than two years. My wife and I had been careful and cautious, following every precaution, doing our utmost to be responsible citizens and stay healthy. Our sons had done the same. But, as the regulations fell away in 2022, and political and public will to fight the pandemic evaporated, our vigilance was rendered useless. We could not escape societal complacence. In Italy, everyone was as tired as of the pandemic as we Americans were. No one at the Roma Bar Show—where I had been invited to speak—wore a mask. Vaccination status was not checked at the entrance. People wanted to shake my hand, pose for pictures, asked me to sign my books and, grateful for their support, of course I did. At a cocktail competition I participated in, the judges initially wanted to samples drinks from the same glass. I pleaded that individual straws be used. Even then, it seems like a big, Covid-flavored Scorpion Bowl. It was exhausting. I couldn’t fight the tide.
It was, of course, all my own fault for coming in the first place. But after two years I was starved for travel. I gave in and made the bad decision. Now, I was paying the price, and how. I not only got Covid, but I got it in a foreign country, a country I was now no longer permitted to leave. And I had to quarantine in a hotel-hospital, which I was also forbidden to leave (and had to pay for to boot). Whether, once I tested negative, I had enough room on my credit cards to fly home was still another matter. (I missed my flight on TAP Portugal and was offered no refund or replacement flight by the airline. Oh, by the way, never fly TAP Portugal. They also lost Mary Kate’s luggage for five days and had us wait in our hotel room for two days for it to arrive, two days that were lost, because the bag never came. When the bag finally arrived, it was dragged down the cobbled alley to our hotel door by a man who acted like he was doing us a great favor.)
Once I got past the rage (that’s a lie, I never got past it), I moved on to shame. I told no one other than my wife and son and stepson, that I was trapped in Rome. Then came despair, and finally a sort of existential disorientation in which time meant nothing. I’ve led a fortunate life. I’ve never had my liberty curtailed in any meaningful way, never been told I couldn’t go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. Complete isolation is no joke.
The Covid captives of Parco de' Medici were delivered three meals a day to their room. A buzzer rang and the bag of food was left at the door. What was not delivered was any liquid other than bottled water. No wine, no beer, no spirits, no nothing. No ice, either. Other things you couldn’t get, that you’d think a former hotel could provide, included an iron, ironing board, laundry detergent, shampoo or toothpaste. When I exhausted my limited supply of clean clothes, I had to wash them in the sink with hotel soap and water and hang them to dry. It was rough sledding for a Virgo who irons everything, including pajamas.
The view out my window was comically awful. I looked upon a parched field that seemed to have no purpose, just a yawning stretch of burnt-out grass. It was bordered on one end by a water-filled gullet that attracted the occasional duck, heron and muskrat, and on the other a highway with carefree drivers headed to the airport. There was no fresh air. You couldn’t opened the windows. They had been sealed shut. Perhaps earlier captives had tried to make a break for it. Upon checking in, I had witnessed on old man cross the lobby with the naive idea that he might take a walk. The staff acted like they might call a SWAT team.
In short, life was grim. That there be a cocktail hour of some sort became a must.
The wine was the first bottle to go. There was a mini-fridge, so I was able to chill it. I discovered Friulian white wine back in 2000 during a trip to Trieste. I have preferred it to all other Italian whites ever since and have bought it when I could find it and afford it. But Russiz Superior was one brand I could never find in the States. The wine was as excellent as I remembered and did not see the next day.
I spoke to Mary Kate every day at noon when she was getting ready for work in New York. It was the only time of day when she was free and I was not asleep.
On the third day, I said to her, “I’m sorry, but the Havana Club is not making it home.”
I love Havana Club 3YO in a Daiquiri. Because of that, I have always looked for it when traveling overseas. (Havana Club is Cuban-made and not available in the U.S.) What I discovered in Rome is that I did not love the rum by itself. I needed to mix it with something. But I had no limes, no ice.
What I did have was packets of sugar, sent up with my daily cold espresso in the morning breakfast bag. I had learned to dash for the door when the buzzer rang at 7 a.m. to savor the coffee’s last hint of fading heat. I also had a small bottle of bitters I had picked up at the Roma Bar Show. It could stand in for the usual Angostura bitters. And an orange had appeared in one of the meal bags. A twist could possibly be fashioned using a small scissors from my dopp kit.
Could a Rum Old-Fashioned be fashioned?
It could! Just not a very good one. The bartenders and cocktail writers (like me!) who prattle on about how ice is a vital part of every cocktail you drink are not kidding. A room temperature Old-Fashioned made from a youngish rum that is on the rough side was not cutting it. Ice is needed to smooth off the rough edges of any spirit in an Old-Fashioned.
Suddenly, the vermouth looked very good.
“Honey, I’m sorry, but the vermouth won’t be making it home,” I told my wife the next morning. She understood.
It wasn’t red, sweet vermouth. But blanc vermouth is sweet. Perhaps a makeshift Rum Manhattan? To fix the temperature problem, I blended the rum and vermouth ahead of time, adding water to simulate the dilution ice would bring, and put the mixture in the fridge for an hour to chill. The Rum Manhattan was an improvement over the Rum Old-Fashioned, but only just.
On some mornings, my breakfast big arrived with fruit-juice boxes. The flavors varied, but were always slightly exotic: peach, apricot, pear. I took to mixing them with the rum. The juices succeeded in softening the fiery spirit, but lacked the acid that might trick my mind into thinking I was actually drinking a sour. The drinks tasted flabby, like the worst Bellini you’ve ever had.
Still, the rum went. The cocktail hour, however lackluster, and my daily call to Mary Kate were all I had to keep me sane.
As for the vermouth, I took to drinking it straight, as all the millions of Italians who surrounded my hotel-hospital would have done. It was an unusual vermouth, with more kick and body than you usually find in a Bianco. I probably would have liked it better over a few ice cubes. Nonetheless, like the rum, it went.
Seven days passed. I don’t know how. I had suffered through two nights of sweats and shivers at the beginning of my stay, but had felt fine after that. However, my mental health was deteriorating. I did some work on a book I had been putting off. I had dreamt of renting a cabin in the woods somewhere in order to complete the manuscript. Hotel Covid wasn’t exactly the sort of time alone I had in mind. But it did the trick; I wrote fully one-sixth of the text while trapped in my room. I also started watching “Better Call Saul” on my computer, binge watching episodes to erase the hours until the sun set and I could sleep again. I got through season five.
Finally, the room phone rang. I was to come down to the lobby and be tested. I was certain I was Covid free. I was wrong. I tested positive again.
Biden had lifted the travel restrictions just days after I checked in. Travelers no longer had to present proof of a negative Covid test to fly to the U.S. No further tourists were checking into the Covid hotel. But that change in law didn’t apply to me. I had to stay in the hotel until I tested negative. The next test would be in two days. I returned to my room and put my head on the desk. I think I remained in that position for an hour. Life had become surreal.
All that was left from my suitcase liquor stash was the bottled cocktail form the Roman restaurant Roscioli. I really had wanted to save that. It was special, unusual, something only sold at the restaurant, and rather expensive. But it was also probably the best booze I had packed and the only complete, working cocktail in my luggage.
I called my wife.
More than any of the other bottles, this was a particularly hard one for Mary Kate to lose. We had been lucky enough to dine at Roscioli, one of the more famed Roman restaurants. Mary Kate had a house cocktail called the Roscioli Cocktail “Aridaje.” It was a strong mixture of vermouth, bitters, cacao and sour cherries. She liked it enough that she insisted on walking halfway across Rome on our last day to purchase a bottle to take back home. The cocktail was bottled for Roscioli by The Key Cocktail, a project of the Roman bartender Valeria Sebastiani and Giada Panella. I think the small bottle cost 30 euros.
I put the bottle in the fridge, getting it ready for cocktail hour.
It was a real cocktail, a balanced cocktail. It tasted great and reminded me why I loved mixed drinks. I savored every swallow. And then it was gone. And, with it went cocktail hour at Hotel Covid.
I was called down again to test. The line for the doctor was shorter this time. The hotel was emptying out. Again, I tested positive. When the doctor called my room to tell me the news, he sounded genuinely sorry for me. Out in the hall, I could hear my fellow captives pack up and leave their rooms, one by one.
A day later, the usual nurse came by for the daily taking of my temperature. I must have looked the very picture of hollow-eyed resignation as I offered my finger to his digital thermometer thingy. I peered down the silent corridor in both directions, then at him. “Is there anyone left in this hotel beside me?” I asked.
He thought a moment. “Not on this floor,” he finally said.
That evening, my dinner didn’t arrive. They had forgotten I was there.
A day later, I tested negative. The doctor asked if I planned to leave the hotel. Was this a serious question? I had been there 11 days. “Yes!” I said. “Now! I will be in the lobby in a half hour.”
I bought a plane ticket on my computer—$900. (That was a bargain. Mary Kate’s had been $2,200.) As I passed through the lobby, the medical facilities had been stripped down to the bare bones. The nurses were relaxing, talking, drinking coffee. There was nothing left to do. I paid my debt to Italian society—$1,200—and had them call me a taxi. I waited for the car nervously. I was half convinced I wouldn’t get away from the Parco de’ Medici.
At the airport, I did everything I could not in the hotel. I ate good food, I drank cocktails with actual ice in them, I had coffee that was hot, I bought clean things. I bought a new shirt. My only clean shirt.
At the Duty Free shop, I looked for bottles to replace the ones I had drunk while in quarantine. The selection was poor. There was very little that was as good or unique as the bottles I had emptied at the Parco de' Medici.
In the end, I bought a liter bottle of Havana Club 3YO. I held nothing against it, even though I now knew the rum better. It still made good Daiquiris. If you had ice and limes.
Odds and Ends…
Books are Magic, the popular Cobble Hill book shop, will open a second Brooklyn location on Nov. 5 on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights… Modern classic cocktails are everywhere these days! Milady’s has a Little Italy on the menu. And Hawksmoor has launched a new menu that includes a section called Second Golden Age. It includes riffs on the Cosmopolitan, Penicillin and Earl Grey MarTEAni .. The bizarre, sudden Negroni Sbagliato craze—kicked off thanks to an interview promoting the TV show “House of the Dragon” on HBO's TikTok account—has resulted in a full-fledged bottled cocktail. St. Agrestis is taking pre-orders for a limited edition Bottled Negroni Sbagliato, developed in their Greenpoint, Brooklyn distillery using their Inferno Bitter Aperitivo, housemade vermouth and Italian prosecco. The drink was first concocted back in 2018, the team eventually decided to shelve it due to lack of American awareness for the drink. Well, that’s not a problem anymore!.… Lullaby, the Lower East Side bar where the late Brother Cleve was an owner, will launch a new menu in early November… Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em from the Award-Winning Bar, a new book by Neal Bodenheimer and Emily Timberlake, will be published tomorrow, Oct. 25… A bar art exhibition by artists PJ Cobbs, Jill DeGroff, Nicole Desmond, and John Tebeau will debut at Porchlight bar in Manhattan on Nov. 3 from 6-8 pm… For early holiday shoppers, signed copies of all my books are now currently available at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY… Regarding the book tour for Modern Classic Cocktails, the next stop is Boston Shaker in Boston on Nov. 5 at 4 pm. Mark your calendar… It’s National Fuzzy Navel Day! Sort of! Enjoy.
My gosh, what a horrid experience, the opposite of la dolce vita. I spent a couple of days in that hotel long ago when it was a lot better than when you were imprisoned there. Glad you've recovered sufficiently to talk about it.
Ugh … tough way to end a what read in prior posts like an otherwise memorable trip for you all. We just returned from a family trip to Italy (fortunately no Covid issues) … so much crazy good food and drink, including Locale in Florence (on this year’s top 50), Vittorio Emanuele in Bologna (big Amaro Montenegro bar with a view of fontana di Nettuno) and Camparino in Milan (so Italian, our favorite). Great duty free deals on Monte, Nonino & Lucano vs US