??? IN YOUR GLASS
ediscovering ermouth by Myles Dannhausen Jr. photos by Brett Kosmider
I
f you’re a cocktail drinker who has never given much more than a passing thought to vermouth, you have a lot of company.
“Americans generally treat vermouth as something that is supposed to be in the drink, but that they don’t want to taste in the drink,” said Kendall Johnson, bar manager at Waterfront Restaurant, as she and Zach Lozoff, longtime-bartenderturned-cocktail-ambassador, gave me a tutorial on the long-buried ingredient that has slowly made its way to the front of any good bar’s shelf. Most of us know vermouth in two ways: as the dry version we’re supposed to rinse our martini glass with, or as the sweet version our grandparents put in their Manhattans. Over the years, proportions of vermouth in cocktails such as martinis and Manhattans have been dramatically reduced. Where once a cocktail would be made with a third part vermouth, it’s now a splash or a rinse. But as cocktail culture has made its comeback over the past decade, so has our understanding of vermouth. Vermouth is an aromatized, fortified wine, flavored with botanicals such as roots, bark, flowers, herbs and spices. The European Union has strict rules for products that carry the vermouth name: They must be 14.5% to 22% alcohol by volume (ABV); they must be 75% wine; and they must include wormwood as a bittering agent, among other rules. Vermouth has long been popular in Europe, where many drink it straight or on the rocks with a twist of lemon. If that sounds disgusting to you, then your vermouth palate is probably similar to what mine was not long ago: Martini & Rossi sweet or dry, likely out of a rarely touched, dusty bottle. A couple years ago, Lozoff introduced me to better vermouth, and it expanded my cocktail horizons. A high-quality vermouth will run you about three times the cost of Martini & Rossi, but it’s worth it not only for making a better Manhattan or martini, but also for creating easy-sipping, simple, low-alcohol drinks that are perfect for a warm spring afternoon, like the Spanish Gin and Tonic or just a glass of vermouth with a lemon twist. Grab a bottle to see for yourself!
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door county living / doorcountypulse.com
