Make your own vermouth
In July we traveled to southwestern France, where my good friend, culinary adventurer Kate Hill, lives on a small farm. As I settled into a familiar chair in the kitchen, watching Kate crack freshly gathered chickens’ eggs for clafoutis, I was distracted by the sight of a large glass jar filled with a slightly rosy liquid, herbs and spices at the far end of the table. Kate introduced me to her own Catalan-style vermouth.
It is not a vermouth to mix into a Manhattan, wave over a martini or tip into a Negroni. This is a spiced and boozy fortified wine — made to be sipped as an aperitif over ice, with a twist of orange peel. It is refreshing and complex, cozying up to cheese, olives, charcuterie and other salty snacks.
The recipe is flexible: an infusion of a base alcohol, citrus rind, sugar, spices and herbs added to wine. When Kate learned that some Spaniards use their local sherry as the base alcohol, she opted for Armagnac, since it’s readily available in her part of the world. For my version, I chose a little of each: some sherry, some brandy.
The orange peel provides a prominent flavor note but is not floral in the least. Rather, it carries a slightly bitter edge, achieved by cooking strips of zest in a deeply bronzed sugar syrup. In testing, I added the brandy while that caramel was still warm — and had a moment of deep regret. The caramel broke, sticky and solidly attached to my wooden spoon, and looked impossible to fix. Fortunately, gradually warming the brandy, without boiling, eventually led to melting the caramel back into liquid form.
Patience is an underrated ingredient. I waited for my concoction to develop (at the back of a dark closet). It was a long month, but now I am appreciating a souvenir of Gascony with every sip of vermouth.