Roman pub manager Leonardo Leuci has noticed an increasingly popular request from young people who step up to the bar to order a drink: “Make me something strong.” Leuci spent a decade working at watering holes abroad, from France to Florida to the Bahamas, before coming back home last year to manage a locale in Rome’s bustling Trastevere neighborhood. Right away, he was surprised to be seeing — and serving — so many young people whose only goal was to get sloshed. “In Italy, we don’t have a drinking culture,” Leuci says. “Lots of young people don’t even know what they’re drinking … They just [want] to get drunk.”
