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Vermouth is wine that has been flavoured with herbs and spices, sweetened a little, and strengthened with a splash of spirit. By law it has to be mostly wine, and it has to contain wormwood or one of its relatives. That last part is where the name comes from.
Most people meet it in a Martini or a Negroni and never think about it again, which is a shame, because it is a drink in its own right. It is also the bottle most likely to be quietly going off in your cupboard right now.
Table of Contents
What Vermouth Is Made Of
Four things go into the bottle: wine, botanicals, sugar and alcohol.
- Wine. Usually a plain white, chosen because it does not shout. Wine Folly puts the requirement at seventy five per cent wine, which is why vermouth sits on the wine shelf and not the spirits shelf.
- Botanicals. Herbs, spices, peels and bitter roots. Every vermouth contains an artemisia, the plant family that includes wormwood, and that is what gives the drink its bitter backbone. The rest of the recipe is usually a secret.
- Sugar, or mistelle, which is fresh grape juice with alcohol added to stop it fermenting.
- Spirit, added to bring the strength up. Finished vermouth runs from about sixteen to twenty two per cent alcohol, with most bottles between eighteen and twenty.
The name is German. Wermut means wormwood, and Italian producers turned it into vermut and then vermouth. If you want the sugar numbers by style, our guide to whether vermouth has sugar has the legal bands.
The Styles, and What Each One Is For
| Style | Colour | Taste | Classic use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | Pale | Crisp, herbal, barely sweet | Martini |
| Sweet or rosso | Red brown | Rich, spiced, vanilla and orange peel | Negroni, Manhattan |
| Blanc or bianco | Pale gold | Sweet and floral, softer than rosso | Over ice with soda |
| Rosato | Pink | Red fruit with the bitter edge | Spritz |
| Amber or d Oro | Deep gold | Honeyed and spicy | Sipping, or a lighter Manhattan |
Dry and sweet are the two you actually need. Buy a small bottle of each, keep them cold, and you can make most classic cocktails at home.
Where It Came From
Wormwood was medicine long before it was a drink. Turin was the centre of wormwood production in the fifteen hundreds, and local winemakers were already flavouring wine with it and with whatever else grew nearby.
The modern version has a date. In 1786 Antonio Benedetto Carpano, working in a bar on Turin Piazza Castello, blended white wine with around thirty botanicals and called the result vermut. It sold extremely well. His nephew turned it into a brand, and Martini, Cinzano and Gancia followed. Carpano still exists, and Punt e Mes, which means one and a half, is its blend of vermouth and bitters.
France went the other way. Joseph Noilly began making a drier, lighter style on the Mediterranean coast in the early eighteen hundreds, and in 1932 the town of Chambery in Savoie got its own vermouth appellation, home to Dolin and Routin. Italian sweet and French dry is the split that still shapes the shelf. Wine Folly has a good deep dive on the styles if you want the longer version.
The Mistake Almost Everyone Makes
Vermouth is wine. That sounds obvious until you realise where you have been keeping it. A bottle standing in a warm cupboard next to the gin has been oxidising for months, and the reason your Martini tastes flat and cardboardy is not the gin.
Put an open bottle in the fridge and drink it within about a month. Wine Folly gives the same advice. Buy the small bottles rather than the litre ones unless you are drinking it properly, and if you cannot get through it, our guide on freezing vermouth covers the one workaround that actually helps. The same logic applies to any open bottle, which is why we wrote about how long wine lasts after opening.
How to Drink It
- On its own, cold. Three fingers of sweet vermouth over ice with an orange slice is the standard Italian afternoon.
- With soda. Equal parts vermouth and soda water, a twist of lemon. Low in alcohol and very hard to stop drinking.
- In a Negroni. Equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, stirred. Our Negroni recipe has the detail.
- In an Americano. Sweet vermouth, Campari and soda, which is the Negroni without the gin. The Americano recipe is here.
- In a Martini. Gin and dry vermouth, stirred, lemon twist. The ratio is a personal argument that has been running for a century.
- In cooking. Dry vermouth does everything white wine does in a pan sauce and lasts longer once opened.
Close Cousins That Are Not Vermouth
Plenty of bottles sit next to vermouth and get called vermouth. They are aromatised wines or wine based aperitifs, and the line between them is the wormwood. No artemisia, no vermouth. Dubonnet, Byrrh, Pineau des Charentes and Floc de Gascogne all sit on that side of the line, and so does the one below.
Honesty corner: the Just Wines range does not currently carry a vermouth. Rather than point you at something unrelated, here is the closest cousin they do stock, and the reason it is not the real thing.
Lillet Blanc Aperitif
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- Aromatised Bordeaux white, so it behaves like a vermouth at the table
- About seventeen per cent, lighter than most sweet vermouths
- Excellent over ice with soda and an orange slice
- No wormwood, so it is not a vermouth and will not taste like one
- Around forty eight dollars, which is dearer than a supermarket vermouth
Lillet is built on white Bordeaux fortified with brandy and macerated with orange peel. The modern recipe is much lighter on quinine than the Kina Lillet it replaced in the nineteen eighties, which is why old cocktail books do not quite work with it. If you want a vermouth specifically, a bottle shop or a good grocer will have Dolin, Noilly Prat or Martini, and any of the three will teach you more than this article can.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is vermouth a wine or a spirit?
A wine. It has to be mostly wine by law, with spirit added to lift the strength to somewhere between sixteen and twenty two per cent. That is why it belongs in the fridge once opened, the way any wine does.
Does vermouth go off?
Yes, and faster than people expect. An open bottle kept cold is good for about a month. After that it dulls and starts tasting stale rather than herbal. An unopened bottle keeps for years.
What is the difference between dry and sweet vermouth?
Sugar and colour. Dry vermouth is pale, crisp and barely sweet, and it goes in a Martini. Sweet vermouth is red brown, richer and spiced, and it goes in a Negroni or a Manhattan.
Can I drink vermouth on its own?
Very much so, and in Italy that is the normal way. Serve it cold, over ice, with a slice of orange or a twist of lemon. Top it with soda if you want something longer.
Why is it called vermouth?
From Wermut, the German word for wormwood, the bitter herb at the centre of the recipe. Italian producers shortened it to vermut in the seventeen hundreds and the French spelling stuck.
Can I use vermouth instead of white wine in cooking?
Yes, and dry vermouth is often better, because it is more strongly flavoured and it does not spoil three days after you open it. Use a little less than the recipe asks for.
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