March 2023: What is Vermouth???

Creating a uniquely Coloradan vermouth

The word “Wine” is mysterious enough. People, including myself, can spend many lifetimes of learning about wine and not even scratch the surface understanding the many facets of this beverage. Now, I have the audacity to mention the word “Vermouth”! Why would I be so bold to assume that anyone would know what I was talking about. “You make what? Vermouth? I was just starting to get the grasp of the wine thing, Steve, and now you have my head spinning in confusion. What the hang is Vermouth?”.

My basic answer is this: Vermouth is a fortified wine that is flavored with a variety of herbs and spices, also known as “botanicals”, thereby “aromatizing” it. The “fortification” happens when grape spirit from distilled wine is added to the wine and botanicals. It is traditionally made in two major styles: dry white Vermouth and sweet red Vermouth, but also may include a sweet white Vermouth style. Dry Vermouth, originating in France, is famously used to make Martinis and is dry and floral. Sweet Vermouth usually comes from Italy, is sweet, spiced, and herbal, and is used in cocktails like Manhattans and Negronis. Dry and sweet Vermouths are also enjoyed as an aperitif before a meal, or as a digestif after a meal.

Since Vermouth is a fortified wine, it is slightly high in alcohol when compared to non-fortified wine. Vermouth can be sweetened with grape must or partially fermented grape must (Mistelle wine). Sugar is also fine. In fact, the color in sweet red Vermouth is often obtained by caramelized sugar, not the type of wine itself.

Crafting Vino Salida Vermouth can be summed up in the following basic process: First, I make the wine, known as the “wine base”. Then, I calculate how much grape spirit (at 120 proof) to add, creating an alcohol percentage of 15.5% (Vermouth can be as high as 20% alcohol by volume). Then, I add my proprietary blend of botanicals to grape spirit and let them soak together, mingling and relaxing together, to form a “botanical spirit”. After about one month, I add the botanical spirit to the wine base, and it is now called Vermouth! If the style is sweet, I add Salida Mountain Honey, filter the Vermouth, and then bottle, label and enjoy!

Now, in 2023, I find it easy to sum up my process of creating this unique beverage. However, it’s been a long journey of confusion, learning, trials, errors, successes and design to get to this point in time. It all started with a problem, as so many inventions do. It was 2013, and I had some bulk wine that didn’t quite make the cut, so to speak. It was not fit to bottle or even blend into another wine. What a bummer. I hemmed and hawed as to what to do about my predicament. Eventually, double inspiration came my way in the form of two quotes simultaneously. Firstly, I read a quote by John Adams, saying that “Every problem is an opportunity in disguise,” followed by a more recent quote by John Lennon, saying that "There are no problems, only solutions". Contemplating the realm of possibilities, melding the Law of Attraction with Quantum Physics, I imagined that I could resolve my situation by being creative. And so, my solution began…

I decided re-create the wine by having it distilled at Wood’s High Mountain Distillery in Salida. Change its form. That’ll be a good start. In the past, I had done the same thing, working with Deerhammer Distillery in Buena Vista to distill wine into spirit and adding it to fermenting red wine, creating a wonderful port-style wine called “LaVell”. But this time, I wanted to something more unique, a different product than any other Colorado winery was releasing. What could I make? Hmmmm…

In the following weeks, when I was picking up the finished grape spirit at Wood’s, I shared my dilemma with Master Distiller P.T. Wood. He listened, deep in thought, mulling over possible possibilities. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and excitedly said, “Wait a minute. I’ll be right back.” After rummaging around in his office for what seemed an eternity, papers and books flying in every direction, he emerged with an amazing book, “The Mixellany Guide to Vermouth & Other Aperitifs” by Jared McDaniel Brown and Anistatia Renard Miller. P.T. seemed electrified! He started flipping through the pages like a school kid who had received a new comic book from the corner store. He spouted off about this and that and the other thing, eventually culminating in his opinion of what my solution could possibly be: crafting a uniquely Colorado Vermouth. And why not. I had just received Colorado-grown grape spirit and had bulk Colorado-grown wine at the winery. I could even sweeten the Vermouth with local honey, as I was already producing Honey Mead from Salida Mountain Honey. His enthusiasm for Vermouth was infectious. P.T. let me borrow the book (which I kept for way too long), and I became obsessed myself, promptly reading the book three times in a row!

I decided then and there to move forward and craft Colorado-grown Vermouth. I met with P.T. many times over the next several months, chatting, sharing, learning. He informed me of the botanicals that he felt were essential in the styles that I wanted to make, including Angelica Root, Chamomile, Lavender, Sage, Wormwood, Yarrow, Nutmeg, Clove, Cardamom, Galangal, and more. Together, with many trial batches and tastings, we came up with three rough drafts that I could riff on and fine-tune. Eventually, through many more experimental batches in my wine cellar, I had perfected my distinct recipes, and in 2014, Colorado’s first Vermouths were released off our bottling line: a white Extra-dry Vermouth, sweet white Bianco Vermouth, and sweet red Rosso Vermouth. To this day, we sell them in our tasting room as beverages on their own, and for mixing into cocktails. We even make Manhattans and Martinis for customers, pairing them with laughter, live music, steaming Pepperoni/Tomato toasts, and many dear friends. It has been a fun road to travel down, the road to Crafting Colorado Vermouth. Many, many thanks to P.T. Wood for his collaboration in this project. Salute!