I love it when someone lectures me about vermouth.

It’s happened a couple of times recently; a few weeks ago, when a guy sitting at the bar at Zig Zag decided it was his duty as a cocktail geek to put this random stranger sitting next to him (me) on the path to good drinking by relating that so many people — myself included — are ignorant of how to properly store vermouth and too lazy to figure out the differences between the different styles; and more recently, in the comments on last week’s martini post over at Serious Eats.

When I say I love being lectured about this, I’m not being facetious (well, not entirely). While I’ve written about vermouth and aperitif wines a few times over the years, and prepared a presentation on vermouth for last year’s Tales of the Cocktail, I appreciate it when someone offers up stray bits of knowledge about a class of drinks that, just a few years ago, nobody really gave a shit about.

Well, random lecturing strangers, let’s make one thing absolutely clear: I give a shit about vermouth and aperitif wines — partially because they’re delicious, partially because they’re an absolutely essential component in the cocktail world, but mainly because, when you come right down to it, aperitif wines are just so fucking cool — and, whether you’re a drink geek zapping out cocktails at home, or a bartender who likes to actually know the ingredients you’re working with and how best to serve them, a basic understanding of vermouth and aperitif wine is as important as knowing the differences between bourbon and rye whiskey or which drinks should be shaken and which should be stirred.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about the class of aperitif wines known as quinquinas and chinati, which includes familiar brands such as Dubonnet and Lillet along with newer arrivals in the U.S. such as Bonal Gentiane-Quina and Cocchi Aperitivo Americano. To dig even deeper into the whole class of aperitif wines, liqueurs and cocktails, on July 24 I’ll be joined by Neyah the Great for our session, Art of the Aperitif, at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.

Chances are, if you’re reading this blog (I’m assuming I still have readers after my recent shoddy blogging habits), you’re already familiar with the way a classic aperitif cocktail such as a Negroni can fire up the palate in preparation for a meal. But the world of aperitifs is wide, and especially today, with more aperitif wines and liqueurs coming onto the market, the time is ripe for really digging into the category. We’ll discuss some of the background of these different products, along with some classic ways of preparing and consuming them, but we also don’t want to get stuck in the mud of history — aperitifs are a living category of drinks, and they provide an exciting selection of flavors and character to introduce into new drinks, all designed to ramp up the appetite of your guests. We’ll be touching on some of the physical ways these types of drinks provoke the palate, and the way a good aperitif actually makes food taste better. And since these drinks are lower in alcohol, and are consumed at the start of a meal, good aperitifs can play a role in helping the business side of a bar or restaurant.

Anyway, those are a few things we’re planning on touching on during our session, along with pouring a couple of cocktails and tasting samples of aperitif wines including Noilly Prat Ambre vermouth and the new (to the U.S.) Martini Rosato vermouth. If you’re planning to find yourself in New Orleans next month, come check us out.

Art of the Aperitif: Exploring pre-prandial spirits, wines and cocktails
Saturday, July 24, 2010, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Grand Ballroom South, The Royal Sonesta Hotel
300 Bourbon St., New Orleans
$40 (advance), $45 (door) – tickets may be purchased here

Tags: Events, Vermouth by Paul
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I’ve been a bad blogger recently, what with the infrequent updates and all (though I’m still writing regularly over at Serious Eats), but even after spending a busy day writing about booze and a busy evening judging a cocktail contest for Domain de Canton (congratulations, Jay!), I’ve still got to log in to WordPress for two basic reasons: first, it’s Mixology Monday, and I have yet to miss a MxMo post in the three-plus years it’s been going (we’ll ignore that whole “isn’t Paul hosting the July event?” thing from this summer, when I foolishly offered to host right after Tales of the Cocktail); and two, this event is hosted by Vidiot at Cocktailians, and he has selected a topic that’s truly close to my drinkin’ heart: Vermouth.

In addition to writin’ about vermouth and talkin’ about vermouth at events like Tales of the Cocktail, I’m a fan of drinking vermouth — both on its own as an aperitif while I’m cooking dinner, and in big glugs or tiny dribbles when making cocktails. But there’s one thing I wish there was more of in this world: cocktails that used vermouth as the primary ingredient.

Oh, sure, there are the assorted aperitif cocktails — your Bamboo, your Adonis, and things of that nature — but drinks that use the mild character of vermouth as a foundation for stronger-flavored spirits and liqueurs are relatively few in number.

I’ve already written about a couple of my favorite vermouth-based drinks, the Trilby and the Appetizer a la Italienne; here’s another that was introduced to me by Jim Meehan from PDT, a drink I touched on a couple of years back in an article about absinthe I wrote for Imbibe (the photo of this drink that accompanied the story is shown in this screen shot, and was taken by the immensely talented Stuart Mullenberg — I’m showing it partially because it’s freakin’ awesome, but also because I’m way too lazy to set up a photo after such a long day) and that I still like to pull out from time to time: the Chrysanthemum.

I’m hardly the first blogger to prepare a Chrysanthemum, but the drink is so damn tasty I hope I’m not the last. As I mentioned during our recent Vodka-oriented Mixology Monday, in drinks like the Chrysanthemum dry vermouth plays a role not unlike that played today by vodka in drinks like the Drink Without a Name or the Gypsy: it’s a relatively quiet ingredient that serves to diffuse the flavors of louder ingredients such as, in this case, Benedictine and absinthe. But unlike vodka, vermouth serves a couple of other functions: first, it’s lower in alcohol, so it reduces the bombast further, helping a combination of strong-flavored ingredients merge together; and it has its own flavor and complexity, which brings more to the bibulous table than simple alcoholic firepower — in this case, a kind of lean floral aspect that complements the herbaceousness of the Benedictine without challenging its alpha-dog properties.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it — mix one and see for yourself. But a note on the preparation: the Savoy Cocktail Guide and other books of its vintage list this as a two-to-one vermouth-to-Benedictine drink. Depending on your taste, this may weigh in on the sweet side; Meehan recommended shaving the Benedictine back to a quarter-ounce, and your palate may find joy anywhere between those two levels — in other words, play with it until you find what works for you.

Chrysanthemum

• 2 ounces dry vermouth (Dolin’s all the rage right now, but Noilly Prat shouldn’t be underestimated in this drink)
• 1 ounce Benedictine
• 1 teaspoon absinthe

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Deploy a large swath of orange peel over the drink and use as garnish.

That’s where I like to go with vermouth-based drinks nowadays. Head on over to Vidiot’s place to see what other folks came up with for this round of Mixology Monday.

Tags: Absinthe, Drinks, Mixology Monday, Vermouth by Paul
1 Comment »

That crack in my last post about mixing up a batch of Fernet Eggnog — or “Ferneggnog”, as Foliosus put it in the comments section — got me thinking. A surprisingly good drink I tried recently was a Cynar Flip, suggested to me by Jeff Morgenthaler from a recipe by Kirk Estopinal from The Violet Hour in Chicago, and after yesterday’s post I started considering ways to mix something interesting with Fernet Branca.

I’m not alone, of course. The good folks over at Cocktail Virgin Slut posted about a Fernet Flip making its way around Boston way back in the summer of ought-eight; more recently, the Fernet thread over at eGullet featured a recipe for a Fernet Flip served to a patron at The Violet Hour; and last month here in blog-land, Rick at Kaiser Penguin suggested a recipe while inviting everyone to play “whose is bigger?” with their bitters collections.

Thing is, these are all markedly different recipes. The Boston version was simple and straightforward, as befits a flip: two shots o’ Fernet, a shot o’ simple syrup, dash in some Fee’s Whiskey Barrel Bitters, thrown in an egg and shake the holy hell out of it.

Rick’s was somewhat similar, shaving the simple syrup back to a 1/2 once, substituting the Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters for the Fee’s, and using only the egg white — sounds tasty, but if I’m to do my duty as a cocktail nag (c’mon, it’s been a while) then I should point out that for a flip, you better toss the whole egg in the mixing glass.

The Violet Hour recipe was the one that intrigued me: equal parts Fernet & Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, a dash of simple (they call for demerara, but hey, use what you got) and a dash of bitters, plus the obligatory egg.

Now if you’ve sampled the Appetizer a l’Italienne, you’ll know that nothing pairs with Fernet Branca like Carpano Antica (fitting, as I believe they’re made in the same facility), so right there the Violet Hour recipe had my attention. Plus, there’s the sweetness factor — Fernet Branca is bitter, but it’s also carrying its own load of sugar; add a good dose of simple syrup and the drink can quickly become cloying. However, if you instead used a full dose of Carpano Antica (which is also sweet, but not over the top), and shave back the simple syrup to the barest touch, then you might have something that works. I also took a note from Rick’s drink and subbed the Bittermens for the Fee’s, because something about chocolate & Fernet seemed appealing; here’s what I mixed up:

Fernet Flip

• 1 1/2 ounces Fernet Branca
• 1 1/2 ounces Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
• 1 dash simple syrup
• 2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters (see note below)
• 1 egg

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker; give a good dry shake (without ice) to mix the ingredients, then fill with ice and shake like hell to get it good and foamy. Strain into a chilled wine goblet. Twist a piece of orange peel over the drink and use as garnish.

Chalk this up as another holy union between Fernet & Carpano — the flavor of the amaro is tamed, but not subdued, and the egg gives the drink a weight and texture that makes the Fernet seem like a big, furry puppy dog (just don’t look too closely at its teeth). The drink is plenty sweet, and in my opinion could even do without the dash of simple, though you may wish to keep it in for body (and for Fernet beginners). Not sure how the bitters weighed in — this may indeed be a job where something with a deeper flavor like the Fee’s Whiskey Barrel may work better.

Anyway, here’s a way to drink your Fernet and get a little protein in you at the same time. A keeper.

Tags: Drinks, Vermouth by Paul
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No, it’s not the Dark & Stormy.

Though you could be forgiven for thinking that, based on the headline and on that notation on the calendar that today is Mixology Monday, which happens to be hosted this month by RumDood, who has chosen Ginger for this month’s theme. So, ginger plus rum (minus the dood), plus some boilerplate meteorological bally-hoo in the introduction? Surely I’m leading up to Gosling’s & Barritt’s, right? The classic Dark & Stormy? Or some close approximation, correct?

Eh….maybe. I came across this drink a little over a year ago, while working on the cover feature for the July/August 2008 issue of Imbibe, about liqueurs. One of the products I was covering was the relatively new (or newly reformulated, depending on how you look at it) Domain de Canton ginger liqueur. Desperate for a new and, above all, tasty use of the liqueur, I sent a feeler e-mail out to my good friend Jim Meehan at PDT in New York. Jim pointed me to a colleague of his, Tona Palomino, who was managing the bar at WD-50, and Tona unleashed this drink on me.

Noting that the Stormy Weather is a spin-off of the classic Dark & Stormy, Palomino told me how he swapped Domain de Canton for the ginger beer in that drink, matching it against a good, rich, vanilla-heavy rum like Angostura 1919. For complexity and a peculiar alchemical property, he added a hearty dose of Carpano Antica vermouth, which contributes a firm foundation of flavor but also interacts with the ginger notes in the liqueur. With a touch of effervescence from a splash of soda water, the Stormy Weather is somewhat like a mature version of the Dark & Stormy, though as I’ve continued to enjoy these over the past year I’ve come to view the Stormy Weather as something like a worldly Cuba Libre, due to that interaction of ingredients that produces a flavor I can only describe as cola-like.

Here’s Palomino’s recipe, which I included in my Imbibe piece last summer. One note: as listed, this makes a fairly large drink. You can easily scale it back by nudging the rum back to 1 1/2 ounces and the vermouth and liqueur to 3/4 ounce; scale back the bubble water accordingly, but don’t skip the lime twist — those bitter oils provide another layer of complexity to an already blammo drink.

Stormy Weather

• 2 ounces amber rum (Palomino recommends Angostura 1919; I typically use Bacardi 8 to good effect)
• 1 ounce Carpano Antica vermouth
• 1 ounce Domain de Canton ginger liqueur
• 1/2 ounce soda water

Combine first three ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well with ice. Strain into a double old-fashioned glass filled with fresh ice. Cut a thin piece of lime peel and twist over the drink; discard. Add club soda and lightly stir.

I keep coming back to this one, especially during the warm months. To see what other kinds of ginger goodness folks are mixing up this Mixology Monday, head over to RumDood‘s place for his roundup post.

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Tags: Drinks, Mixology Monday, Rum, Vermouth by Paul
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I really wish I could say that I didn’t pick this drink largely because of its name (and because of the resultant off-topic Google searches that will lead people to this blog), but that wouldn’t be quite true. I also wish I could say that I liked this drink a lot more than I did, but that wouldn’t quite be the case either.

Not that this is a bad drink, not by any means — well, not as long as you like Fernet Branca. Fetched from the pages of Barflies and Cocktails, the Stifferino was allegedly created by “Man-About-Town” W.C. Weaver, who dedicated it to “Doc Voronoff” — a name you usually come across in relation to the Monkey Gland (another drink that I realize I’ve never covered on this blog, and may get to as part of the 30/30, even though the recipe’s been thoroughly blogged before, including by myself over at Serious Eats). Here’s how Arthur Moss relates it: “The wintergreen Weaver says its good for all young boys over forty-five like ‘Sparrow’ or George Bowles [...] Methusaleh would think he was Ponce de Leon.”

Fernet Branca so thoroughly takes over most cocktails that I was attracted to its use as the foundation for this drink — especially seeing how it was paired with equal parts of dry and sweet vermouth, and experience has taught me that vermouth works wonderfully with the more aggressive Fernet, perhaps because its weaker and more docile nature gives the alpha-booze amari full license to dominate without overreacting in a surly way.

Ultimately, though, this drink is a spruced-up and more elaborate shot of Fernet; the other flavors play nicely together, but there’s not a unifying center. I can see trotting this out for an unusual (and lower alcohol) aperitif for someone who appreciates Italian amari, but otherwise this won’t get a lot of play around the house, no matter what properties it’s alleged to have.

Stifferino

• 1 ounce Fernet Branca
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• 1 ounce dry vermouth
• 1 dash brandy

Stir well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with strip of orange peel.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Thirty in 30, Vermouth by Paul
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