In Rome, a tourist walks an average of 20 to 25 kilometers a day, as our guide had told us the night before. The imperial city spans several hectares and includes the Roman Forum, the Imperial Fora, and the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as The Colosseum. The latter, intended for public spectacles—mainly gladiatorial combat, animal hunts, executions, and battle recreations—is the complex’s epicenter and the symbol of imperial power.

A witness to almost twenty centuries of history, The Colosseum defies the human scale. Its numbers are the ultimate expression of the empire: an elliptical base of 24,000 square meters, over 100,00 cubic meters of travertine, and a capacity for 80,000 spectators. A monumental project that Ancient Rome completed in just eight years.

In modern Rome, the figures are different: a ride of barely 2 kilometers can take more than fifteen minutes. A miscalculation of time and the result can be an adverse sentence. With our eyes fixed on the clock, we arrived at the Palazzo Manfredi. Our reservation at The Court, an exclusive cocktail bar boasting a magnificent view of the Colosseum, awaited us. The rule was strict: only ninety minutes. Time spares no one, and we had to decide quickly. A gesture was enough.

Like so many in the arena, we were facing the unknown. Before us, an ice skull encapsulating the essence of the cocktail. I understood the game. In the Metamorphosis Negroni, the ingredients were not mixed; the cocktail was not ready. As the ice melted, the blend of Cynar, Frangelico, Campari, and Cinzano 1757 was transforming the drink. Was it a race against the clock or an exercise in patience? We wondered if there was a way to overcome time.

Cocktails are not eternal. Amid the ruins of the Great School of Death, I recalled they are designed to be consumed within a lapse of time, ten to twenty minutes. After that, destiny is fatal: water or heat become enemies. Yet, the genius of avant-garde mixology could defy fate. That feat was a triumph: it delayed the cocktail's dilution and, like an imperial pardon, spared its life. The sunset had arrived, and the end of our reservation was inexorable. Dum spiro, spero. At that very moment, my breath stopped in The Eternal City.