The Golden-Hour Limoncello Spritz

Everyone can make a spritz. Something bitter, something bubbly, ice and a wedge — it's the drink that taught a generation you don't need to work hard to drink well. It's a good drink at any hour. But it has a best one, and we'd argue for a specific version.

Make it with Limoncello, cold from the freezer where it should always live. Two ounces into a big wine glass packed with ice. Then three ounces of dry sparkling wine — something crisp and cheap and cold, this is not the drink to spend on — poured slow down the side so it keeps its bubbles. A short splash of soda to lift it. Stir once, gently, just to marry it.

Now the garnish, which matters more than people think. A wheel of lemon, cut thick. A few leaves of basil, torn once to wake them up and laid across the top. The basil is not decoration. It sits under the sweetness and gives the whole drink a green savory edge, so it reads as a garden and not just a candy. Don't skip it.

Now the hour. The spritz is not a night drink, whatever the aperitivo crowd will tell you about Milan. It's a golden-hour drink. Make it around five, when the sun has dropped low enough to come sideways through the glass and light the whole thing up like a lantern. Take it outside, to the porch or the table where the light is good. The sweetness reads differently in warm gold light — rounder, easier, more like the afternoon giving you permission to stop.

Drink it slow. The ice does the work, opening the drink as it goes, so the last sip is longer and softer than the first. Somewhere between them the light will go from gold to amber to gone, and the day will have handed itself over, and you'll understand why this is the hour.

One is right. Two is a decision. Make it in the light.