Beginning Oct. 6, guests checking into Speronari Suites will find a cocktail created specifically for their stay in Milan. Patrick Pistolesi has reworked the French 75 as a ready-to-drink serve, Speronari 75, produced by Classy Cocktails. The collaboration, with Coqtail – for fine drinkers as creative partner, arrives as Milan hosts The 50 Bars for the first time.
Milan’s Most Private Cocktail Is Served in Your Suite
A few steps from Milan’s Duomo, on a street whose name still carries traces of the city’s artisanal past, Speronari Suites is introducing a new ritual for its guests. As The 50 Bars 2026 arrives in Milan, the boutique hotel is marking the occasion with a cocktail available in just one place: its 22 suites.
From Oct. 6, guests will be able to drink Speronari 75, created by Patrick Pistolesi, one of the leading figures in Italian bartending over the past two decades and founder of Classy Cocktails. Coqtail – for fine drinkers joins the project as creative partner. Rather than another drink designed to travel from bar to bar, Speronari 75 belongs specifically to the hotel. To taste it, you have to stay there.
From Milan to Tokyo, in a Glass
Pistolesi’s ready-to-drink cocktail starts with the French 75, then takes the classic somewhere else entirely. The recipe combines Presobene Gin, Champagne, lime syrup, a citrus mixer and yuzu sake, drawing Mediterranean salinity and Japanese umami into the same glass. Its name carries a second reference. The number 75 nods to the original cocktail, but also evokes shichigochō, the seven-five rhythmic pattern found in classical Japanese poetry and associated with grace and elegance.
That Japanese reference finds an unlikely counterpart in Via Speronari. The Milanese street takes its name from the craftsmen who once worked there making spurs and helmets. In Tokyo, Ginza developed around the city’s former silver mint. Two streets shaped by different forms of craftsmanship become the geographical bookends of the drink.
A Cocktail With One Address
It is in the glass that the conversation between East and West becomes most tangible: a contemporary take on the French 75 built around a distinctly different balance. “A successful twist doesn’t add ingredients; it shifts the balance,” Pistolesi says. “In the classic version, acidity is the driving force. Here, I let the sake and yuzu take the drink in a more saline direction, with a longer finish. I created this recipe for a specific place, and that’s where it stays.”
Keeping Speronari 75 exclusively for hotel guests brings cocktail culture into the most private part of the stay: the suite itself. The idea fits a broader approach to hospitality in which small, highly specific details become part of a guest’s relationship with a property.
Paolo Catoni, co-founder of Speronari Suites, sees the collaboration in those terms. “At the heart of every project is a simple idea: to make each stay feel personal, through details guests won’t find elsewhere,” he says. “The collaboration with Patrick Pistolesi and Classy Cocktails follows that philosophy. It creates a moment that belongs exclusively to the people who choose to stay with us. That’s our idea of hospitality: private, thoughtfully considered and unique to each stay.”
A Speakeasy for One Night
The collaboration will begin behind a closed door. On Oct. 6, from 6 to 11 p.m., one of the hotel’s suites will become Speronari’s Speakeasy for a single night. Entry will be reserved for invited guests and those with the password, who will be among the first to taste Speronari 75 while stepping away, briefly, from the rush of events surrounding The 50 Bars. From 6 p.m. that same evening, Speronari 75 will also begin appearing in guest rooms — ready to be poured and enjoyed in the suite for which it was created.
Outside, Milan will be heading into one of the busiest nights of its cocktail calendar. Inside Speronari Suites, the celebration comes by the glass, one day before The 50 Bars 2026 awards.
Immagini courtesy of Drink Kong, Classy Cocktails
