While in D.C. over the 4th of July weekend I went to PX, one of those needs-a-password speakeasy style cocktail bars, which was fun. Especially once we got a seat at the bar itself and could talk to the bartender about making the perfect Old Fashioned. But the drink that stood out to me at the time was their Manhattan—I was drinking a lot of Manhattans around that time but this one was different. Different as in better. And I decided it was probably because they used homemade rather than commercial vermouth.
I have a home, so technically I could make homemade vermouth too. Some googling revealed that vermouth is basically white wine infused with a bunch of interesting botanicals, fortified with some brandy and, for sweet vermouth, some carmalised sugar. Every recipe seemed to have a different list of interesting herbs, many of which I'd never heard of, so I wrote down a combined list of about 20 or so and set off to see what I could actually get my hands on. This proved to be easier than I thought as the local health-food store actually had a self-serve section with many dried herbs. Half an hour later I had about a dozen little baggies of herbs and a $10 bottle of wine.
The recipe I used was basically this one. Once it was cooled and strained back into the wine bottle we put it to the test head to head with the Noilly Prat in a couple of Manhattans. The homemade was definitely smoother although I think the taste still needed improvement. But the fact that half the bottle was gone by the next morning would indicate that it was by no means bad…
2 comments:
I did later go to a vermouth making class and read a lot more about vermouth making. The class (meant for restaurant/bars) cheated a lot using a variety of things other than wine (base) and brandy (fortification), including port (added body and color) and Campari (botanicals).
The method that I used produced a decent vermouth, but not a standard Italian-style vermouth. Probably cheating like they did in the class I took would have brought it a lot closer. With that said, it worked in some recipes, but not in others. And after all that effort, it was more expensive than off the shelf vermouth.
How did I overlook this post until today? I'm so impressed that you did this! I am such a sucker for homemade ingredients of all kinds. I don't drink much, so I haven't experimented with making alcoholic stuff yet, but this sounds just fabulous.
I did pick up a Danby cordial-maker at Goodwill a few months ago, that supposedly makes cordials in hours that should take weeks. I need to try making something with it!
Post a Comment