Time was, an aperitif meant a hugely expensive gin and tonic
served in a fancy restaurant while you perused the menu. I’m not one to turn
down a G&T, but a broader range of pre-dinner snifters is very welcome.
Of course many of these aperitif drinks have a long and
distinguished history and what we are experiencing is actually a re-discovery.
But the expansion of bar and cocktail culture is also driving new uses for them
to whet the appetites of a new generation of drinkers.
Vermouth is probably the most famous style of specialist
aperitif and it is great for drinking alone, over ice, but also adds depth and
interest to cocktails.
The process to make it sounds straightforward enough:
various botanicals are steeped in grape spirit for a period of time and then
mixed with wine and caramel to give the required level of sweetness to balance
the dryness of the wine and the bitterness of the herbs. In order to qualify as
vermouth, one of the botanicals must be wormwood, or Artemisia absinthium. The Latin name gives you a clue that this is
the same herb used to flavour Absinthe, rocket fuel of the Parisian demi monde,
the wormwood giving it its hallmark green tinge.
The German for wormwood, Wermut, gives us vermouth in
English. Vermouths tend to be around 14-20% alcohol, roughly the same as sherry
and port.
The birthplace of vermouth is Italy and its second home is
France. The big names, Cinzano and Martini, are both based in Turin, northern
Italy and their various incarnations are widely available. Noilly Prat, the
classic French vermouth hails from Marseillan, not far from Béziers in southern
France. Noilly Prat Original Dry, with its full flavoured, very dry style and
hint of herbal bitterness would be my choice for a classic vodka martini.
If you’ve dipped your toe into the aperitif pool in recent
years, it may well have been Aperol that tempted you in. Aperol shares some
characteristics with vermouth, but the dominant flavouring is quinine, a bitter
tasting substance derived from the bark of the quinquina tree, rather than
wormwood. Such drinks are collectively known as quinquinas.
Aperol originated in Padua in Italy and became popular
between the wars. It’s a slightly disconcertingly bright orange colour and has
a bitter-sweet flavour profile – think of a less brightly coloured and less
intensely flavoured Campari. The in vogue way to drink it is as a spritz:
3 parts Prosecco, 2 parts Aperol and 1 part soda water, over ice with a slice of orange. As Aperol is only around 11%
alcohol to start with, this ends up being a lightish option as an aperitif and
has the added virtue of being fizzy, which is what we Brits seem to require in
our drinks currently.
There are no hard and fast rules about the different
categories of aperitif and in addition to vermouth and quinquina you might also
come across Americano, which is usually grouped with the quinquinas as this
ingredient is generally part of the recipe. Another issue which muddies the
waters is that these drinks usually involve proprietary blends of herbs and
spices and the exact recipes will be jealously guarded.
Other quinquinas you might encounter include Dubonnet (£9
from Tesco), which was originally developed as a way of making quinine
palatable to French foreign legionnaires fighting in malaria-infested parts of
Africa.
The French have a fondness for a range of herbal-infused
drinks, including Suze, which is flavoured
with gentian, making for a really bitter drink, and St Raphael, which is red,
fruity sweet and only slightly bitter. It’s hard to know if these should be
classed as vermouths or quinquinas. You might also come across Dolin from
Chambéry on the edge of the French alps, which is possibly a “true” vermouth
(£10.49 in Waitrose).
I wasn’t aware that Spain had also had a part to play in the
vermouth story, but have recently been put right. Peruse the aperitif section
of a Spanish restaurant – Iberica, for example (branches in London, Manchester,
Leeds and Glasgow) lists six vermouths, all from Spain – and you’ll see what I
mean.
Finally, neither a vermouth, nor a quinquina (or Americano
come to that) Pedrino Alcoholic Tonic (£1.90 for a 200ml bottle from Waitrose)
is, nevertheless, most definitely an aperitif. It’s a blend of Pedro Ximenez
sherry, quinine, citrus and sparkling water that is initially sweet, then
tangy, nicely grippy with a slightly
bitter finish. On its own, it’s a light
alcohol 5.5% - combined with gin, it’s a bit more hardcore.
Salud! Santé! Cin Cin!
