Ah how sweet it is! Vermouth tasting becomes a romp of greatness.

Vermouth. That wonderful little aperitif, that seems to be pushed to the background. My experience with vermouth up to now has been nearly non existent. The only thing that seemed to be ubiquitous with vermouth was a bottle of Martini and Rossi. Some feel this is also where the name for the Martini cocktail came from, although that's a subject for another debate.

What I am getting at is that my impression of vermouth has always been that it was something to be pushed aside, it is just a simple little ingredient you add to a better drink, such as buying just cheap tequila (which is not REAL tequila) to a giant bucket with crummy sour mix.

However, when doing this blog and research it became obvious as my drinking and imbibing skills have improved considerably from my younger days, there was a whole entire world about vermouth that I was unaware about. I first learned about this from my wife who when in Europe would have great chilled glasses of straight vermouth on ice. I soon realized that this was a common thing, that there were specific vermouths that were not just made for mixing and an afterthought for something else. There were even vermouth bars, some (those Spaniards) would even mix vermouth with olives and then head out for a fantastic lunch.

It became apparent that I was not appreciating this drink well, and so I set out to change my attitude. I tasted 4 vermouths, 3 of which were common place the other... might as well have been from a different planet. Within one sniff I was suddenly transported into a world that I had never been before, and realized... I had been missing out.

To understand more, watch the red vermouth tasting below in the video. From here on this is a drink worth exploring more for the true imbibing enthusiast. Great vermouth to be had for the cocktails (Manhattan etc..), but sometimes you just want to have it for yourself all alone!

The four red sweet vermouth tasted were:

• Stock
• Martini & Rossi
• Noilly Prat
• Antica Formula
  

Cheers and Enjoy!