alcohol

MARTINI & ROSSI Extra Dry Vermouth

My Fellow Inebriates,

I promised you the skinny on vermouth, and now that my head’s clear I can tackle it.

Vermouth is one of those sometimes mystifying products that figures in a truckload of high-falutin’ drinks without necessarily being any great shakes on its own. Or at least that’s what my drinking buddy Blackie Bear tells me.

Blackie says there’s no big mystery—it comes in dry or sweet varieties, and a good drink-mixing recipe book will tell you which one you need.

Try this mix for instance:

  • 2 oz dry vermouth
  • ½ oz white curacao
  • 2 oz club soda (if you insist on dilution)

Serve over ice with a twist.

I don’t know what would happen if you used sweet vermouth in this, but Blackie says he’d probably end up handing it over to me to finish off, which would be fine because I would.

My local booze store, like yours probably, carries only a handful of vermouths, and Martini & Rossi is the only one I’ve tried, although I plan to have a party tasting at my house the next time my parents go away. They scoffed when I originally said “vertical tasting,” as vermouth is non-vintage, standardized stuff that doesn’t change from year to year or batch to batch. What can I say? My alcoholic journey is only just beginning.

Vermouth is classified as a fortified wine, running at about 18% alcohol typically, as in the case of Martini & Rossi Extra Dry. At $12 for a one-litre bottle, it’s a steal, and drinking it all in one go won’t trash your pocketbook—just you.

Regardless of where they’re made, dry and sweet vermouths are referred to by heavy vermouth users as “French” and “Italian” respectively. This is because people who are really messed up on vermouth are often humping someone and need a separate vocabulary that doesn’t include words like “sweet” and “dry” that they might be employing otherwise.

And then there are “wet” versus “dry” martinis. The more vermouth a martini has, the wetter it is. Predictably, I favor a dry martini as I like to keep my alcohol levels pretty jacked. Blackie Bear says this is one of the things that makes me similar to Winston Churchill.

You do need to keep your vermouth in the fridge if you’re not planning to pound it all at once, as it will oxidize within three months or so. My mother kept her bottle of Martini & Rossi in the cooking cupboard for over two years, tightly capped to thwart my thumbless efforts. Picture me mocking her saying, “It was just fine for making lemon-caper chicken.”

 

I RECOMMEND trying all the vermouths your liquor store stocks, starting with this awesome product.

Environmental Message

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’m really against driving. You see, I’m always drunk, so I mustn’t ever drive. And that kind of makes me an environmentalist. See, if everyone spent every day pie-eyed the way I do, no one would ever drive, and our planet would flourish.

Now, get yourself a big glass of vermouth and leave some comments about how you enjoy it. Did you know the word “vermouth” is German for “wormwood”? Well, why cook with something so special? You can afford it, so go fill up that Big Gulp cup and get sipping. I want to hear about all my friends’ vermouth experiences tomorrow when I drag myself out of bed.

You see, we’re out of vermouth at my house.

Oh yeah, and check out this video. I had no idea I could apply for a job like this, although I would have been hesitant to submit to the obvious surgical mods those bears in the video have had. Is it worth it? You tell me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1g2yKxb0I

APPLETON ESTATE V/X Jamaica Rum

My Fellow Inebriates,

In our liquor cabinet is a tiny bottle of APPLETON ESTATE Jamaica rum, purchased to make…a tiramisu.

This would offend me to my core had the tiramisu not been intended for my 2010 birthday. Yes, my parents do remember the date, assisted by kids so frantic for sugar that they would happily celebrate an animal’s birthday a day if they could in order to have cake.


The quarter-cup of rum my mum so generously included in last year’s celebratory dessert did, in fact, cook off, leaving a pleasant rum flavor but little of the hooch that yours truly craves so desperately. Yeah, yeah, it was nice, and everybody sang and scared the shit out of me with flaming candles, toward which my constant delirium tremens threatened to launch me, and all the rest of it.

Perhaps my malaise was evident last year, because this year my mum just gave me a shot glass of rum.

Not a standard pour, mind you, but what she deemed appropriate for a smallish bear. But, ahhh, it was delightful.

For quality my thimbleful of rum, despite being APPLETON ESTATE’S entry-level product, did not disappoint. Gloriously honey-gold and leggy (not that I could really test this part to my satisfaction, with my inadequate glassware), it wafted scents of banana, orange layered with molasses, and an ever-so-slight vanilla whiff at the finish. A touch oily in the mouth, APPLETON ESTATE V/X is a busy rum nested with flavors and imparting just enough burn.

I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THIS BEVERAGE FROM A LARGE SNIFTER, NOT A TEENY SHOT GLASS!

In fact, I would not mix this rum with anything, NOR WOULD I COOK WITH IT! It is heavenly as is. That said, it would make a swell rum-and-coke if you must. And if you wanted to visit me in jail one day (not there yet, just anticipating it could happen one day), you could bring me rumballs. But no other balls please!

Highly RECOMMEND!