Make this cocktail with some home made West Coast Spiced Rum
1.5 oz West Coast Spiced Rum
0.75 oz dry vermouth
0.33 oz orange Curaçao
1 barspoon grenadine
Garnish: Orange twist and brandied cherry
El Presidente
De La Louisiane
The original La Louisiane cocktail dates back to the late 19th century in New Orleans, where it featured equal amounts of rye, vermouth and Bénédictine. This contemporary version, which is far less sweet, is adapted from The PDT Cocktail Book by Jim Meehan (2011).
2 oz rye whisky
0.75 oz Bénédictine
0.75 oz sweet vermouth
3 dashes absinthe
3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Garnish: 3 brandied cherries
Negroni Gelée Shot
These look like those after-dinner gelées you get in fancy restaurants, but come with a boozy and bittersweet kick.
• 1 cup London Dry gin
• 1 cup Campari
• 1 cup sweet vermouth
• 1 cup water
• 4 packets (0.25-ounce each) powdered gelatin
• Garnish: sanding sugar, candied orange zest (optional; recipe below)
Powell Street Punch
Matthew Benevoli’s Powell Street Punch uses his recipe for homemade Red Hibiscus Vermouth.
• 1 oz brandy
• 1 oz Red Hibiscus Vermouth
• 0.5 oz Sons of Vancouver amaretto
• 1 oz apple cider
• 0.25 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Garnish: Cinnamon stick
50/50 Martini
Matthew Benevoli’s recipe uses his homemade White Chamomile Vermouth recipe
• 1.5 oz dry gin
• 1.5 oz White Chamomile Vermouth
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• Garnish: Lemon twist
DIY vermouth
Add a personalized twist to your favourite cocktails with this aromatized, fortified wine
Let’s talk about the often-misunderstood aperitif vermouth. What is it? Where does it come from?
Vermouth is fortified wine with herbs, roots, spices and sometimes sugar added. There are a handful of different styles to choose from: the most common offerings are sweet red, traditionally from Italy; and dry white wormwood-infused from France. The word vermouth is the French pronunciation for “wermut,” which is German for wormwood, the mystical herb that gives absinthe its reputation and provides the distinctive dry, bitter note found in vermouth.
The Alchemist Fall/Winter 2020
Have you been spending a lot more time at home lately? Funny, us, too! That’s why, in this issue of The Alchemist, we look at ways to shake things up in our home bars.
Charlene Rooke rounds up the tools you need—which also happen to make great holiday gifts—and talks to cocktail legend Camper English, founder of cocktailsafe.org, about the dangerous things you really shouldn’t be doing at home or anywhere. We offer the five essential classic cocktail recipes everyone should know, and our Tasting Panel shares the bottles they stock at home. And we introduce our new Home Bar columnist, Matthew Benevoli, who shows us how to make homemade vermouth.
Demystifying vermouth
The Alchemist tasting panel samples the fortified, aromatized elixir
Vermouth is not just an essential ingredient in many cocktails, it is already a cocktail, a wine fortified with spirits and flavoured with herbs, spices and other botanicals. And it’s enjoying a major comeback right now.
Five of Vancouver’s top bartenders gathered on a rainy afternoon at Tableau Bar Bistro to taste this beguiling product: Sabrine Dhaliwal, bar manager of Juke Fried Chicken and Beetbox; Adam Domet, bar manager at Pourhouse; J-S Dupuis, beverage director of Wentworth Hospitality; Robyn Gray of Elisa Steakhouse; and Katie Ingram, bar manager at Elisa Steakhouse.
They all love vermouth. “It’s rich in flavour and lower in alcohol,” Ingram said. “And we’re all flavour junkies. So we get that fix of citrus and bitterness and everything you’re looking for.” Besides, with prices as low as $12 for a litre bottle, vermouth is also a complete bargain.
The panel tasted 16 local and international vermouths. Here’s what they had to say.
Bitter & sweet
Why you should be drinking vermouth made in B.C.
More than 200 years ago, wine drinkers in Turin and Marseille started adding bittering and flavouring botanicals to wine fortified with spirit, to make an entirely new drink. The styles they created—a sweeter, reddish-brown style in Italy and a drier white-wine version in France—are iconic today, and collectively known as vermouth, a term that comes from the root word for wormwood, which is synonymous in many languages with “bitter.”
Now enjoying a renaissance thanks to cocktail mixology and the Spanish-driven trend for sipping them solo or as a spritz, vermouths should have a place on your back bar. (Actually, in your fridge, where a red vermouth will stay fresh for several months, and white vermouth for several weeks after opening.) Here are three new and three favourite B.C. bottlings to try.
Citrus Breeze
This refreshing spritz recipe by Gianluigi Bosco, head bartender at MARKET at the Shangri-la Hotel, uses a vermouth you can make yourself.
• 3 oz Citrus Wine (recipe below)
• 0.25 oz melissa and peppermint hydrosols (see note)
• 2 dashes citric acid, available at gourmet stores
• Soda water, to taste
• Orange zest and mint, for garnish