Vodka, Confidence, and Spirit Substitutions: Signs You’re an American Drinker in Europe
Over decades of regular trips to Europe, Regine Rousseau, the Chicago-based founder of wine marketing and events consultancy Shall We Wine, never really subscribed to the directive often preached by U.S. travel publications: When traveling abroad, try not to let your American show.
“Number one: I like wearing really bright colors, so I rarely blend in anywhere,” says Rousseau, also senior sales advisor at Verve Wine Chicago. “Number two, I am Black, and typically when I’m traveling, I am one of few Black people, even in the places I visit in Europe. So typically they look at me and know I’m American.”
Having known what it is to be othered, this Haitian-American prefers to understand a bit of the culture she’s in rather than insert herself. With time and miles, she’s learned she’d prefer lingering over cramming in as many stops as possible. Though she’s a 70-30 wine-to-cocktail drinker, she often lets her curiosity and the environment lead her drinking choices. Thus, as a first timer in bars in Portugal and Ischia, she probably asked the bartender, “What’s your specialty?” or “What is it you make that no one else makes better than you?”
“When I’m traveling, I want to sit, I want to think, I want to have a conversation, and I really want the place to become part of me and hopefully leave something in the place I’m visiting,” Rousseau says.
Her words exude the sensibility of a seasoned traveler: One doesn’t have to fake blending in to be a good visitor.
Historically, the American Tourist has conjured some silly, occasionally unfortunate tropes: shouty, bald-faced enthusiasm through the lens of American exceptionalism. Fanny packs crammed with cash tips deposited in excess regardless of local customs. Athleisure! A penchant for vodka and ice, not to mention the trails of takeaway coffee cups we leave in our wake. We’re boisterous and opinionated, occasionally overly friendly. This shows up in our drinking behavior, too — the way we demand our Martinis just so and willingly chat up strangers at the bar. Occasionally, our exceptionalism crops up in our very American cocktail requests (Skinny Bitch, anyone?).
But with experience — nowadays Americans globetrot much more — there seems to be promise that the American tourist will embrace more of the local and the unfamiliar. Or, at least, fake it convincingly enough.
The Tenacious Martini Tourist
Over the past decade, international travel among U.S. tourists surged roughly 71 percent, per data from the International Trade Administration. In 2025, Americans took a record 24 million trips to Europe, a number that’s expected to climb by another 5 percent by the end of this year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Does all that extra mileage translate to shedding certain stereotypes as Americans descend on the drinking establishments of Madrid, London, and Rome? European bartenders say the thread connecting U.S. travelers in 2026 is largely one of curiosity and openness … though we still love our vodka.
“What can I say? Americans at the bar are entertaining, in a positive way,” says Giorgio Bargiani, assistant director of mixology at The Connaught Bar in London. Maybe he has to say that; after all, North Americans are the majority demographic at this luxury cocktail bar and its iconic namesake hotel. Bargiani can pick out U.S. visitors right away by how they engage staff and fellow customers.
“It starts when they arrive at the bar and you treat them as everybody else,” he says, “but straight away there’s conversation. There’s no shyness. There is always interest that, in my eyes, feels genuine, compared to other cultures where this interest is not necessarily false, but more polite than genuine.”
The interactions tend to spread beyond customer and bartender, until the whole bar seems to percolate with chatter about what everyone ordered and whether they like it. Of course, with gabby confidence comes opinions, of which Americans seem to proffer many, and often, about what’s in the glass. At Connaught Bar this holds especially true for Martinis, which are its bread and butter, to the tune of 30,000 made each year.
“When I moved to London [in 2014], I could see the average American guest coming in with a very precise idea of how they like their Martinis, for instance —” most notably with vodka over gin.
The same goes for ordering Martinis garnished with blue cheese-stuffed olives, as U.S. customers have been known to ask of Arturo Burzio, head mixologist at the luxury Madrid hotel Rosewood Villa Magna. (Hey, Northern Spain makes great blue cheese, right?)
“Every time you land somewhere in Italy, someone says, ‘let’s have a Spritz.’ It’s like, why? Of course, I’ll do it out of love and to participate.”
The complaint that a good Martini is hard to find is a common refrain among Americans in Europe. No matter that across much of the E.U., a “cocktail” more often refers to “something fruity, sweet, and sour” — we seem determined to believe that the savory, boozy, very American drink is a widely shared cultural touchstone.
Chalk it up to the glut of choice that pervades consumerist American culture, but we also seem to love customizing even the most classic cocktails. That the traditional Margarita contains no added sugar doesn’t stop U.S. customers requesting the cocktail be made “without sugar,” nodding to the sweeter versions commonplace around the U.S., Burzio says. He is likewise accustomed to fielding American requests for U.S. spirit substitutions, like bourbon and specific vodka brands, plus the occasional ask for American-born concoctions, like the Cosmopolitan, Vodka Cranberry, and, regrettably, the aforementioned Skinny Bitch — made with vodka, lime juice, and soda water.
You Can Take the Tourist out of America…
You can’t always take the American out of the tourist. Even the well-traveled among us occasionally give ourselves away by ordering exactly what we want, regardless of the place or its legendary status.
The historic, recently reopened cafe, cocktail bar and restaurant Bar della Pace, a stone’s throw from Rome’s Piazza Navona, is best known for spritzes, Bellinis, and Rossinis served with a side of potato chips and people watching. Some American visitors happily comply with ordering these customary aperitivi; but just as many may request a Martini or Espresso Martini, per director and manager Maria Iemma.
“They’re always friendly, cheerful and respectful,” Iemma says, wryly adding, it helps that they tip so generously.
By comparison, old hand U.S. travelers are more comfortable exploring unfamiliar ingredients and local spirits. “They may ask for recommendations, describe the flavors they enjoy, and let the bartender guide them,” Burzio notes.
They even come around to gin Martinis, Bargiani says, “because when in London, we drink gin Martinis.”
Rousseau has markedly evolved in how she travels since she first visited France as a senior in college and was horrified to learn that “cooked” steak could still be bloody inside. Most notably, she says, she’s become more of a participant than a consumer of other cultures. After all, the joy of rituals lies in experiencing them as intended.
She still recalls sitting at a bar in Porto on her first trip to Portugal and asking the bartender, “What’s interesting that is truly Porto?” Then boom! Out came that honeyed, low-ABV white port and tonic, “and it was Porto.” She drinks them whenever she is back in Portugal’s second-largest city.
She could, however, do without the sugared, sunset-colored Aperol Spritz altogether, though she can’t seem to escape it.
“Every time you land somewhere in Italy, someone says, ‘let’s have a Spritz.’ It’s like, why? Of course, I’ll do it out of love and to participate.”
When in Rome, right?
Drink the place. It’s a simple mantra that bears repeating, as our shrinking globe brings more of the world to our fingertips without the benefit of context. If Warren Johnson, the well-traveled partner at Saint Urban’s in Charleston, S.C., had stuck with his preferred beverage order of wine while visiting Antwerp, Belgium, this summer, he might have missed out on Westmalle Dubbel, the iconic reddish-brown ale made by Trappist monks just north of the city. Fortunately, he followed the local advice, and changed just a little in the process.
“Its complex, deeply bitter, fruity, and herbaceous notes seriously hit the mark,” Johnson recalls, “and with that, I’m now a beer drinker.”
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