Vermouth
To the average cocktail drinker, vermouth is almost always dry, its cocktail companion is almost always the Martini, and its use is as minimal as possible in order to (supposedly) make the Martini as dry as possible.
Vermouth is a fortified wine, it is almost always made from white wine, and comes in either a red or white variety (and a couple of mild variations thereof), and it gets its particular unique characteristics from the various herbs and spices which are added to it. Every producer has their own unique combination of ingredients and processes that they apply to their product. There are perhaps fifty different herbs and spices which can be utilized, gentian, mint, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, quessia, sandalwood, rhubarb stems, quinine, just to name a few. The word “vermouth” comes from the German word “Wermuth” for “wormwood”, which was one of the key herbs in the original formula created by Antonio Carpano in the late 1700’s.
The original vermouth was sweet and red, due to the botanicals used to flavor it. Later the French, specifically Joseph Noilly, chimed in with their version, which was white and dry in 1813. This led to “Italian Vermouth” and “French Vermouth” often being used to refer to these two distinctly different styles. Today however virtually all vermouth producers make both a red (sweet) and a white (dry) version, so those terms can be misleading. It is usually best to use “sweet” and “dry” to refer to these most common vermouth varieties, with options such as “bianco”, “amber” and others being specialty sub-versions offered by some brands.
Vermouth sits sort of at the crossroads of wine and spirit. Wines degrade quickly (relatively speaking) once they have been opened, spirits on the other hand laugh in the face of such a danger. Vermouth, basically a wine, has both the spices added to it, as well as a little bit of extra fortification from brandy or other spirits to help it age far less slowly then a normal wine. It is widely accepted however that once a bottle of vermouth has been opened, it is probably best to store it in the refrigerator if you are not expecting to use it within a day’s time. Myself, I’ve found that a bottle of premium vermouth, once opened and left in the cupboard for a month or more, essentially just turns into a “lesser” vermouth, instead of being totally unacceptable. So you don’t have to be “too” concerned, but none-the-less, I keep my vermouth in the fridge.
Vermouth, either sweet or dry, makes a wonderful drink all by itself. Just pour some into a rocks glass filled with ice, and add a lemon twist, and it is an extremely refreshing drink. In fact this is how vermouth is traditionally consumed in Europe. Here in America however there is a strange fear surrounding vermouth. I will often show a bartender a drink I’d like him to make which uses a measurable amount of vermouth in it, and many bartenders will verify that I really want to use that much vermouth in my drink. I remember one time when I was trying to get a bartender to make me a Martini using my traditional 3 parts gin to 1 part dry vermouth ratio, and he insisted that I instruct him on exactly when to stop adding the vermouth. He very carefully was adding the vermouth, almost a drop at a time, to the cocktail shaker, with visible pain on his face at each added drop. The kicker was that once he finished making the drink (properly) for me, I insisted that he have a sample. He stole off a quick strawfull, paused, turned away briefly, and then looked me straight in the eye and said: “I normally don’t like gin Martinis, preferring vodka instead, but that is a GREAT drink!” My work here is done.
So please don’t be afraid of vermouth. Give it a try this summer just by itself, on the rocks, with a twist, and for your next Martini, add a health dose of it to the glass either dry, or sweet, which is how the drink was originally intended.
Glad to see a plug for vermouth, but I’d like to hear a little more about options beyond sweet / dry, red / white. The photo conspicuously features Vya, but no Punt y Mes or Carpano Antica. Might also be interesting to discuss the relationship between vermouth and bitters.