Hit the slopes at Cortina, Val Gardena or Mottolino, and you'll quickly become familiar with one of Italy's most iconic winter cocktails: bombardino. Invented in 1972 by Aldo Del Bò, a ski lift manager in Livigno, bombardino mixes whiskey or brandy and hot zabaione, the Italian version of eggnog, finishing it off with a heap of piped whipped cream. It's the perfect drink to warm yourself after a day on the powder.

But visitors to Italy's mountain resorts may not know that with every order of this now classic cocktail, they are taking a side in one of Italy's longest-standing culinary rivalries – one that dates beyond the founding of the country itself, and weaves into its history a fake 19th-Century chef, the Austrian Imperial court and the frostbitten soldiers of World War One.