THE ART OF VERMOUTH

Vermouth has been many things to many people throughout history; an ancient medicinal remedy; the aperitif of kings and the spirit that created American Cocktail culture, few alcoholic beverages have a story so rich and yet so much forgotten as that of Vermouth. Thankfully, vermouth is currently experiencing a strong revival and long gone are the days when it was ignored by a generation of baby boomers. Today, the rediscovery of cocktail culture by Gen X’s and the thirst for social interaction from Millennials is propelling this great Mediterranean aperitif back into the limelight.

Civilizations have been mixing wine, herbs and honey for well over two thousand years as a way of improving and preserving the quality of their wines. It is said the Hippocrates used to prescribe it and there are records of their use even in ancient China. The drink has evolved and recipes have changed over the years, but at its core Vermouth remains a simple mixture of fortified wine, herbs and sugar that is surprisingly difficult to master well.

Modern Vermouth traces back its origins to the northern Italian city of Turin in 1763, when it was the capital of the House of Savoy. Under the gaze of the Italians Alps, surrounded by some of Italy’s best wine lands and only a short distance from the important trading port of Genova, this region had all the needed ingredients for local winegrowers to experiment with the artemisia and many other local herbs that grow abundantly and combine them with exotic spices that would make their way from Asia, Africa and South America through Genova’s powerful trading network.

Back in the prospering city, Italian café culture was blossoming and the local Torinese would meet for vermouth in the bars and bottegas opening under the arched porticoes of Piazza Castello, directly across from the Royal Palace. It is in one of these bottegas, that Signor Marendazzo, with the support of his helper Antonio Benedetto Carpano, served the popular vermouth that went on to gain a royal warrant and become the court’s aperitif of choice. Carpano would go on to create what is widely renowned as the first modern vermouth.

EATALY LINGOTTO

Next time that you visit Turin, make your way to the Eataly Gastronomic Centre on Via Nizza 230. Here the Italian Group led by Oscar Farinetti has one of its museums dedicated to Italy’s gastronomic art and the slow food movement. Housed at the location of the old Carpano factory, Eataly has dedicated an area to the history of Vermouth making.

Vermouth makes its way to America just as cocktail culture starts to evolve in the 1850s. With a reputation for being the drink of choice of Europe’s high society, it brings with it an aura of sophistication that rubs onto the image of the cocktail, but more importantly, it puts at the hand of the bartender a complex mix of flavours that comes ready to mix and which would be difficult and costly to reproduce otherwise.

Vermouth was added proudly and it claimed its rightful share of the drink for almost a century until the onset of Prohibition would cause a chain reaction that relegated it to a secondary role and notorious shame, for in the new dry America, all imports of European vermouth had been banned. Unlike hard spirits, which were relatively easy to replicate in clandestine distilleries or brought across the border from Canada, the subtleties of vermouth were seriously compromised and the products that became available had little if anything left in common with their Italian origins. The quality of these substitutes became so infamous, that bartenders where left with little option but to relegate the role of vermouth, casting a shadow on its reputation that would take well over half a century to shake off.

DRY VERMOUTH

The white dry Vermouth that we regularly know as French Vermouth originates from the city of Chambery. The city has been part of France since 1860, but it was in fact part of the House of Savoy since the XIV Century and was its capital before it moved to Turin.

Sasha Petraske opened Milk & Honey on New York’s Lower East Side, in 1999. Widely credited with the rebirth of cocktail culture and with it the return of the cocktails that vermouth helped create, Milk & Honey brought back attention to detail and a renewed focus on the quality and origin of ingredients that had been so sadly missed. Existing vermouth offerings no longer made the cut and an appetite for new discoveries started to develop.

In the last decade, a new breed of Vermouth makers has answered this call and completely overhauled the quality and image of the vermouth that you can find in your local bar or specialised store. New attention to the grape varieties and wine sourcing, as well as a return to artisan methods for the extraction of botanicals and their blending, has given birth to a new type of Vermouth that deserves its regained lead role.

Next time you order a Negroni, Manhattan or Martini, try naming your vermouth and discover how it is so much more than just dry or sweet. Next thing you know you may even be changing the ratios!

REVERSED MANHATTAN

This classic cocktail was first served at a reception hosted by Lady Churchill (yes, Winston’s Mum) at New York’s Manhattan Club, in honour of the presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. For a lighter option try reversing the Vermouth and Whiskey measures below.

INGREDIENTS 60ml / 1oz 9diDANTE INFERNO 30ml / 2oz Bourbon or Rye Whiskey 2 Dashes Angostura bitters 1 Dash Orange Bitters

HOW DO I MAKE IT? 1 - Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass with abundant ice and stir until chilled, about 30-45 seconds 2 - Strain into a chilled cocktail glass 3 - Garnish with a Maraschino cherry