Font Resize'I'LL HAVE a martini," the dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes said.
"How do you like it?"
"Wet and dirty," she said with a wink.
As I labored under the gaze of those iridescent eyes, I became aware that she was watching every move that I made.
"You don't see many people ordering their martinis wet."
"Really?"
"Most people don't want vermouth at all these days," I added, acknowledging that "wet" meant extra vermouth and the "dirty" meant adding olive brine.
She had made no move to leave so I took this as a cue to continue. I told her the story, as I knew it.
Vermouth came to prominence in America during Prohibition. Actual quality liquors and liqueurs manufactured in foreign countries were hard to come by and quite expensive. While bar spirits like illegally made American gin were cheaper, they were inferior in quality. Intrepid bartenders took the fancy imported liqueurs and fortified wines and added them to the illegal rotgut in order to make it more palatable. A liberal dash of high-quality spirit added to a low-quality one will greatly improve the flavor, as true today as it was then. After Prohibition ended, liquor quality and availability improved and the need for additives decreased - that's why today's dry martini rarely contains any vermouth. Which is a good thing, because most mass-market vermouths available today pale in comparison to the originals.
In 1786, the first vermouth
In 1813, an intrepid French herbalist in Lyon, France, created dry vermouth using the whites of the Herault (primarily Clairette blanc and other Languedoc whites, including Marsanne and Roussanne) and infusing them with wormwood and many of the same herbs used in the sweet vermouth, but omitting the caramel. He let it age six months in oak, a deliberate oxidization (considered undesirable in almost all other wine), added a touch of grape juice mixed with alcohol (mistelle) to craete the unmistakably character of dry (or French) vermouth. But it would take his son Louis Noilly, and son-in-law Claudius Prat, to make the product successful (starting Noilly Prat in 1855).
Today both styles of vermouth are produced all over the world, in various levels of quality. Both Noilly Prat and Carpano still manufacture their classic vermouths (although both are now subsidiaries of larger companies). Carpano's Antica is still the best sweet around, and Noilly Prat's dry is still the way to go - it is best to avoid most of the rest.
The U.S. government classifies vermouth as an aperitif wine, which has an alcoholic content of not less than 15 percent, and has "the taste, aroma, and characteristics generally attributed to vermouth." Under these broad guidelines many products would actually qualify; here are a few I recommend. Many of these will make your $10 bottle of whiskey, vodka or gin taste like a fancy European beverage. Use a 1:1 ratio vermouth to liquor when using the following products.
n When making martinis (making sure to substitute lemon peel for olives as a garnish): Lillet blanc, Dubonnet blanc (the U.S. version is made in Bardstown, Ky.), and Martini and Rossi's Bianco.
n When making Manhattans: Aperol (orange and rhubarb flavored), Punt e mes (vermouth and bitters, also made by Carpano) and Dubonnet rouge.
After my spiel, my dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty leaned over and took a took a sip from the glass while it still rested on the bar. The blue in her eyes paled just a little.
"You know," she said, "I don't even know what a wet and dirty martini is. I just wanted to get your attention."
As she walked away I knew three things:
- I had successfully killed any interest that she might have had in me.
- I think too much about alcohol.
- Sometimes "wet and dirty" means exactly that.
Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.
