Winston Churchill once uttered a not-so-subtle dig at one of the ingredients that makes a martini a martini. When asked how much vermouth he wanted in his, he replied, “I would like to observe the vermouth from across the room while I drink my martini.”
Vermouth, both the sweet and the dry, is essential to many classic cocktails, which are enjoying a resurgence at bars across the Hudson Valley and beyond. Manhattans, negronis, martinis, and more, if made in their truest form (unlike Churchill’s glass of ice-diluted gin), contain at least a spritz or a swirl around the shaker of vermouth.
Good thing fortified wines predate the former prime minister. Vermouth (derived from the German word wermut, meaning wormwood), or at least wines infused with herbs and roots, can be traced back thousands of years in various countries that used them for medicinal purposes. But modern-day vermouths, flavored with bark, spices, roots, flowers, seeds, and herbs, are credited to Antonio Benedetto Carpano, in Turin, in 1786, before Joseph Noilly invented dry vermouth in early 19th century Marseille.
But what makes a vermouth a vermouth? According to traditional rules set by the European Union:
- 75% of the final product must be wine
- ABV must be between 14.5% and 22%
- Artemisia absinthium, AKA wormwood, must be a prominent botanical
- It can be sweetened with grape must, sugar, caramel, honey, or other natural sweeteners, like sucrose
- Sugar content determines categorization as dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet, or sweet
Vermouth produced in the U.S. has looser guidelines: a 15% minimum ABV; it must have the taste, aroma, and characteristics attributed to vermouth; it must be fortified with a stronger spirit (like brandy); the base must be wine; and there’s no requirement to use wormwood. Common ingredients on either side of the Atlantic include clove, cinnamon, quinine, citrus peel, cardamom, marjoram, chamomile, coriander, juniper, hyssop, and ginger.
At Klocke Estate in Claverack, they stick to EU guidelines with a local approach. Their white (somewhere between sweet and dry) and sweet red vermouths are 100% of New York. They grow, harvest, and crush their own grapes to produce a neutral white wine base, which is then flavored with botanicals grown in their own soil or on nearby farms and fortified with house-distilled brandy. At the bar, sipping vermouth as an apéritif or in a spritz mixed with sherry, tea, and sparkling wine, is encouraged. Founder John Frishkopf says they’re trying to put people onto what’s common in Italy, France, or Spain, “where you go out and have a vermouth.”
Vermouth is essential to many popular classic cocktails, such as Manhattans and negronis.
In 2013, Bianca Miraglia’s Uncouth was one of three vermouths produced in America when she started her business in Brooklyn. Local ingredients—including the mugwort she harvests and uses as a bittering agent over wormwood—was something she was onto from the beginning.
“Uncouth is made in the ancient way; I use what’s growing and make it like anything else—seasonally,” she says. “The plants are from my 16 acre farm in Saugerties. I source wine from Red Hook, Long Island, and the Finger Lakes, and fortify with brandy from Finger Lakes Distillery. I use only New York ingredients, and I’m the only one that doesn’t add sugar.” Miraglia’s Saugerties farm, where she produces her small-batch sip, is not open to the public, but Uncouth is on the shelves at select liquor stores (and behind the bar at Klocke).
Perhaps the wildest interpretation of vermouth comes from Kingbird, which is produced locally in Accord and widely available in liquor stores. Based on the Jungle Bird cocktail, it’s infused with fresh pineapple, lemon zest, grapefruit, allspice, cardamom, gentian root, and cinchona bark. Think part vermouth, part Italian bitter similar to Aperol—and great in a spritz.
Related: Klocke Estate Delights With Soil-to-Glass Distilling in Claverack
