Sip back and relax

Once relegated to the back of the drinks cabinet, vermouth is enjoying a fresh revival and not only as a traditional cocktail ingredient, says Jack Adair Bevan

- Jack Adair Bevan

FOR many people, the only experience of vermouth used to come in the form of an ancient bottle hidden at the back of the drinks cabinet. It would sit—mysterious and sometimes menacing—next to the holiday ouzo and Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Which is all wrong; because, in fact, vermouth should be kept refrigerated and consumed within two weeks, not left to gather dust for 20 years.

Drunk properly, it has much to offer: the beauty of vermouth is that it can be enjoyed both as a stand-alone drink or as a key aromatic ingredient in cocktails. It is superb as a pairing for food or as a digestif. For bartenders and cocktail aficionados, it has long been a crucial ingredient for drinks such as the negroni, at once sweet, bold and bitter and so popular that it has a dedicated week in the calendar. Now, however, vermouth is enjoying a wider revival. Although there once were only a handful of commercial producers across the world, there are now dozens in almost every wine-making nation, including in the UK.

Vermouth is a fortified wine and falls into a category known as ‘aromatised wines’ or wine-based aperitifs. Simply put, it is made with a base wine, infused with lots of botanicals, including herbs, roots, barks and spices, sweetened with caramel or mistelle (an unfermented grape juice with added alcohol to cease fermentation). To be a true vermouth, however, it should contain wormwood or one of the 400 possible members of the Artemisia species, which provides one part of the satisfying bitterness.

Different parts of the world have their own styles: there’s rosso (sweet), from Italy; dry from France; and