For our March/April issue, we journey into the world of vermouth, and few people follow the category more closely than journalist, educator, and Imbibe contributor François Monti. For this episode, we explore vermouth’s rich history in cocktails, its culinary connection, and the future of this aperitif wine.
François Monti is a Madrid-based journalist, educator, and Imbibe contributing writer, and the author of books including El Gran Libro del Vermut. For this episode, he joins us to talk about all things vermouth (the focus of our March/April issue), exploring vermouth’s rich history in cocktails, its culinary connection, and the future of this aperitif wine. He can be found on Instagram @francoismonti.
Radio Imbibe is the audio home of Imbibe magazine. In each episode, we dive into liquid culture, exploring the people, places, and flavors of the drinkscape through conversations about cocktails, coffee, beer, spirits, and wine. Keep up with us at imbibemagazine.com, and on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, and if you're not already a subscriber, we'd love to have you join us—click here to subscribe.
Episode 94: Viva Vermouth, with François Monti
Paul Clarke
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe magazine. I'm Paul Clarke, Imbibe’s editor in chief. And for this episode, we're going to wade into a topic that's fascinated me pretty much ever since the first time I mixed a cocktail, and that's vermouth.
If you want to make a Manhattan, you need vermouth. Ditto for a Negroni. And even though there are still people out there who'll twist themselves into knots insisting a Martini doesn't need vermouth or only needs the vermouth applied in a certain way, the fact that they're spending so much time and energy talking about vermouth simply underscores its importance.
But what is vermouth? Where did it come from? Why is it out there? And why have bartenders and cocktail lovers been taking it increasingly seriously in recent years? That's the crux of the cover feature in our March-April issue, which dives deep into the intriguing and evolving world of vermouth. Pick up a copy of that issue if you haven't already, because we explore vermouth and other aperitif wines from a number of different angles.
And when we first started talking about this feature early last year, one of the first people I thought of to help guide us through is our guest for this episode of the podcast. François Monti is a journalist, cocktail educator, and spirits and vermouth expert based in Madrid. He's written about different Spanish approaches to vermouth for Imbibe in the past, and he's also the author of four books, including El Grande Libro Del Vermut. For this episode, we're sharing our full interview with François Monti, conducted for our vermouth feature, as we talk about what's happening in the world of vermouth today, the proper ways to understand and enjoy vermouth, and why this aromatized aperitif wine continues to hold such fascination.
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Paul Clarke
François, Welcome to Radio Imbibe.
François Monti
Hey, well, thanks for having me. It's amazing to to be part of of this podcast. I'm very excited to be talking about all the things we're going to be talking about today.
Paul Clarke
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I've been looking forward to having you on for a long time because, you know, you have been researching and writing about vermouth for a number of years. You’ve written about vermouth a couple of times for Imbibe, so some of our readers are familiar with you from that. And right now, we're preparing a large feature on vermouth, exploring its history and varieties, as well as the ways it's made and the ways to best enjoy it. With your perspective and your background in it, and with the many changes taking place in the vermouth category in recent years, is this a good time historically for people to start exploring vermouth?
FrançoisMonti
I think it's been, you know, for the last few years, we've seen a huge boom, quite a bit of growth, both in terms of how many brands are appearing on the market, but also the overall volume of sales. I mean, it was a sort of slowly dying category. It's actually been brought back to life for the last few years. But I think we're also seeing some quite exciting things in terms of new products, new directions. Plus I would say that it's also being stabilized. The sense that a few years ago it was really crazy, you'd see very out there sort of bottlings. There was always the question of is this actually vermouth or is it not vermouth, which is very important on the American market. But my feeling is that now things are being a bit more centered maybe, and that a lot of the stuff that is coming on the market are not necessarily good or great, but at least this sort of makes sense.
Paul Clarke
And, you know, for many people, they first come to vermouth, their very first experience with vermouth is as an ingredient in a cocktail supporting gin or whiskey or other ingredients. Are we missing out on something by not drinking vermouth on its own or by not using it as kind of the starring role in a cocktail?
FrançoisMonti
I'm not going to say anything bad about using vermouth in cocktails. After all, if I got into this sort of vermouth and writing about vermouth and doing that book on vermouth that I did and writing pieces for it Imbibe and other magazines, etc., that's because I got into vermouth through cocktails. I mean, my way in was the dry Martini and the Manhattan and the understanding that what made those drinks sing really was not necessarily the spirit. Obviously, the spirits are very important. But really what made a dry martini? A dry Martini is defined by vermouth. What made a Manhattan? Manhattan is actually the Italian style red vermouth. Right. So obviously not going to dismiss cocktails. But it is true that there is another way of drinking it, I mean, it's also difficult because if you go to Italy right now, not a lot of people drink vermouth straight, although they invented vermouth, they drank it straight initially. But now it's all about the Negronis and the Americano. But I'm based in Spain and in Spain is one of the few countries in the world, maybe the only one where people are still drinking vermouth straight. And I think it's important to try those products, the way they were intended to be drank, I think first it gives us a better understanding of what this is all about, gives us a better appreciation for the history, for the production methods, for the background. And also, I think we are now, we are all talking about no-low drinks, you know, vermouth is very interesting in the sense that it's higher ABV than wine and beer, of course, it's lower ABV than spirits, obviously. But it has a lot of complexity. So it's still very satisfying on its own. It's almost like a bottled cocktail anyway. So I think there are many, many reasons to start exploring straight vermouth or slightly modified vermouth. Don't forget about dry Martinis and Manhattans. Obviously. Don't forget about Boulevardier. Don't forget about Negronis. But, you know, give it a chance. And I think it's a very rewarding experience.
Paul Clarke
Right. Absolutely. And before we step off the cocktail question, I know that you cover cocktail history and you research cocktail history as well. Vermouth in cocktail history, it played a very big role. You mentioned the dry Martini. You mentioned the Manhattan. Obviously, we know it from those drinks. But vermouth, when it first started appearing in cocktails, it was a tremendous deal. I mean, it changed the landscape of cocktails here. No longer was it just sours or Old Fashionds and things of that nature. All of a sudden, it's like went from black and white to Technicolor in terms of flavors available to you in the glass.
François Monti
Yeah. I mean, I don't know what David Wondrich would say, I'm pretty sure he’d agree. But maybe he’d say I'm overstating my case, I think. Or you are. But yes, I mean, it was a sea change, it was a revolution. I mean, you look at Jerry Thomas book, 1862, not a single vermouth drink, and then the last cocktail books that were published before Prohibition, or English Books of the ‘30s, 80 percent of the drinks have vermouth in it. So, you know, it is a pretty big evolution in 60 or 70 years. And also, if we're talking about cocktails, as if all mixed drinks were cocktails, but it used to be, you know, a sour was a sour. A Collins was a Collins The julep was a julep, everything was its own. Vermouth’s arrival sort of broke open those gates and sort of got everything, you know, transformed everything into a cocktail. it would be wrong to say that the Manhattan or the Martinis were the first drink, not to be a category, but to have a name, you know, you know, you could be whiskey sour, gin sour, whatever. It's not the first. But the trend of actually instead of inventing a new category for a new style of drink, to give them their own name, individual name for the cocktail, does a manhattan the dry martini etc. etc. or the martini initially, is really something that was if not pioneered then spearheaded by vermouth. And I think that if you stop and think about it, it gives you a big idea of how much of a change the arrival of those aromatized wines made on the cocktail scene.
Paul Clarke
Right. Right. And, you know, as you started to mention in Spain, where you live, vermouth historically has played a more significant role as something that’s sipped on its own or lightly modified. For American listeners unfamiliar with Spanish vermouth bars, what do you order? How is it served? And what kinds of options are there for modifications or additions to the vermouth?
François Monti
in Barcelona and Madrid in more of a sort of a trendy sort of vermuteria, as call these vermouth places, people would be a bit more specific, but still a lot of people in Spain would just go to a bar and ask for a Martini. And the martini would mean whatever house vermouth there is. That's because although vermouth is very important culturally, a lot of people have come to sort of confuse the number one brand, because Martini is the number one brand in Spain too, within the category. I'm saying unfortunately not because I have anything against Martini, but because it means that even here there is not that awareness of the category, it’s just something they drink. They know they drink that, but they don't have more more of a clue. Going back to the actual question you were asking, people would mostly ask for vermouth and it would be served on tap, which I think that's a big difference from what you'd expect or from what even is happening in Italy, for example. So a lot of the time would be vermouth served on tap, and that’s it, as simple as that. Obviously, mostly served with with a bit of a tapas , something to eat with it because, the way it's consumed in Spain is very culinary, but there are also a lot of ways of modifying it. One of the oldest add on to vermouth is, is to ask for vermouth and gin. so that is not going to be what we would call a cocktail. I mean, there's one of my favorite bars in Spain is Casa Guardia, in Malaga, down south on the coast, on a Mediterranean coast, and you go there it is just that old bodega style in the Spanish sense, old bar, with all those old barrels and the vermouth that actually stuck in the bar. And so it comes from the tap of the barrel and you ask for a vermouth and it’ss going to be what 2.50 Euros for a glass, very cheap. And if you ask the bartender to add a drop of gin in it, it's still going to be 2.50. So that's one of the reasons why it's one of my favorite bars in the world. So vermouth gin is certainly a big thing for old timers especially. But you also have sort of proto cocktails, for example, in the north of Spain, in San Sebastian or Bilbao, in the Basque country, they have what they call Marianito, which is pretty similar to what we have in Madrid, which is called the Media Combinacion, or in Barcelona, the Mitxa combinacion, which is basically a mix. And I think each bar has its own version of vermouth as a main player and then a bit of gin, a bit of a bitter ingredient can be something like Campari or can be Angostura bitters, maybe a bit of orange liqueur, like Curacao, things like that. And it's going to be maybe it's going to be throne, maybe it’s going to be built in a rocks glass. Maybe it's going to be served in a in a martini glass. We could call it a cocktail, it's not really a cocktail, but it's a way of a sort of spicing up the vermouth a little bit. It's just a few drops of this, few drops of that. And that would be another traditional way of enjoying vermouth. You could also have it with soda water, which, you still see it now. It's still popular, but really it's sort of a hangover from when ice was not as readily available. And you need it to dilute a little bit of the vermouth because of its sweetness and bitterness. So you would add cold tap water. Now, obviously it's not necessary anymore because you can just throw ice into it and you get the same effect and you still probably keep more of the character of the vermouth, but people still do it because, you know, they remember seeing their grandfather and grandmother doing it right. So, yeah, those are the basic, options. Although one of my favorite way of, of enjoying vermouth here in Madrid is a drink called the Yayo, especially one in a place called Casa Camacho. The Yayo is tap vermouth, strengthened with a bit of cheap gin. And the cheap gin is very important. We're talking about supermarket gin like, you know, no labels sort of stuff, and then lengthen with a bit of Casera. I don't know if you know what Casera is, it’s categorized as like sparkling water, but with a bit of a citrusy element in it. It's not like 7UP or Sprite because it doesn't have sugar, but it's just like sort of water with a bit of citric acid into it. And it makes them something very refreshing and extremely dangerous because you have a couple of them and you're like, Oh wow, it's only 6:30 in the in the afternoon and I still have to have dinner somewhere and oh, God, oh God. This is going to be one of those nights.
Paul Clarke
Right. And on that note, you mentioned earlier, well, having tapas as being in Spain with your vermouth. How essential is food to understanding the vermouth experience? Focusing largely on drinking vermouth on its own or slightly adjusted?
François Monti
I don't think anyone would drink vermouth without food. it's not just not something you do. I mean, in general, Spanish people don't like to drink without food, but for vermouth in particular it’s something you do not contemplate. I mean, it's an aperitivo drink. So Spaniards will have it with typical bar snacks from Spain, which is going to be mostly, cured olives or vinegary anchovies, mussels in escabeche, which is also like a method of keeping mussels, sort of in tin in conserve like also with vinegars. All those flavors go very, very well with vermouth because obviously vermouth is built on a balance between sweetness and bitterness. Spanish vermouth precisely because people drink it straight. It sort of dropped the bitterness. It's like this, it's much less bitter than those Italian brands that have appeared on the markets over the last 15 years, precisely because the bitterness is going to be tiring to the palate. You're going to have one beautiful product like Carpano Antica formula, you can only have so much of it, probably going to have one glass if going to have it straight. Spanish vermouth is built so that you have three or four. So there's less bitterness, which means that the sweetness, although not wanting to get too technical, the sugar level in Spanish vermouth is much lower than Italian vermouth, but the perception of sweetness, we perceive it as sweeter because there's less bitterness. What it means is that if you match it with the acidity of those vinegar, youre cured or preserved foods that are so typical of the aperitivo hour in Spain, you sort of clean up your mouth you clean up the sweetness with the vinegar and wash out the vinegar with the sweetness. So it makes for something really, really addictive.
Paul Clarke
And, you know, we've been talking about Spanish vermouth, but, I mean, the same could largely be said about, you know, the French vermouth, the blanc and dry vermouth as well as Italian vermouth. These were all intended to be consumed with food. We've been talking about the red vermouth, in terms of like a dry vermouth, what kinds of flavor directions would you go, or with a blanc vermouth, what kinds of things would you serve with that?
François Monti
Dry vermouth is a complicated one because obviously it's a style that was invented by the French. But French actually never drunk dry vermouth straight. They've always mixed it. The actual way of drinking brands like Noilly Prat in France from the invention of the brand was always to mix it with a bit of sugar, a little bit of liqueur maybe from crème de cassis, maybe Curacao, maybe grenadine syrup, and then mixing it with water. So the product was actually not meant to be drunk on its own. But it's a style of vermouth that’s got like real gastronomical credibility, first because it's used by chefs to do sauces, in their cooking. And now, like, if you visit the region production of Noilly Prat, for example, it's also an area where they have a lot of oysters and vermouth goes, Noilly Prat and dry vermouth in general they go very very very well with oysters. I always tell people, I teach quite a bit, upcoming bartenders or sommeliers about aromatic wines. And I tell them dry vermouth and oysters is the champagne of the poor. You don't have the money for champagne, a bottle of dry vermout will be perfect with the oysters or your mussels. That works very well. Sweet white vermouth, it’s is a bit more complicated precisely because there's no bitterness. It's all about all about the fruit. all about it's flowers and fruits. For me, it's a bit more complicated to match with food, probably more with dessert, although light ones, you know, like saboyon, for example, that works well. But we've seen appearing, the sweet white category is very complicated. It's the one where we've seen more changes over the last few years and we've seen appearing a few brands that try to make them a bit less sweet and a bit more bitter. And those ones can be also very interesting with orders of like fish. But it really depends on the level of sweetness. You know, it's been more complicated to match
Paul Clarke
And there's been a degree of growth and change in vermouth in recent years with more producers coming online, more lines coming out from existing producers. And also, you have producers not just in Spain, Italy and France anymore. There are several U.S. producers, producers in Australia, other parts of the world. What are some of the benefits of this change in this growth and what kinds of things do we need to watch out for as people start, experimenting in the vermouth category?
François Monti
I mean, the benefits is that, when you're talking about traditional products, especially traditional product for Europe and even more traditional products from Italy, we're talking about people who are really, really, really set in their ways. And sometimes those ways are great. I mean, obviously for me, I've mentioned Noilly Prat before, but what are you going to tell them? Like they’re, what they're doing is perfect and they've been doing it for 200 years. Carpano or Cocchi or Dolin or all the great producers from Spain. They've been doing it for a long, long time for a reason. But sometimes you sort of get tunnel vision, like maybe there are other things you can do. I think we went through a phase ten years ago and hopefully over where we're bringing stuff that maybe was not that interesting. It was just like anything goes, ‘oh, have you tried this crazy ingredient? Why are we not making it with this wine?’ Or a very simple example to understand is that most red vermouth is actually made with white wine. So we got over the last few years, a lot of people saying, all right, well, why would I use white wine and add caramel to make it red, if I cannot use red wine? You know what? if the traditional producers are not using red wine, there might be a very good reason, is that it doesn't work. I mean, there are a few red wine based vermouth that actually work, but I would say that 80 to 90 percent of them are really not good. And we went through that phase where it was also like, because you're new to it, you're a bit ignorant and you try anything just because you don't know. And now I think we're in a phase where on the one hand, the strong new vermouth from New World producers are well-established and they have two things, two players from more traditional countries, and where all that craziness is maybe a bit behind us. So we are seeing, I would say, the new world producers, especially the ones from the US, have taught a few things to European producers in terms of farm to glass wine producer actually making vermouth, which was not a thing, has never been a thing in Europe and actually is very difficult legally to do in most European countries. Work with local botanicals instead of working with the traditional sort of more international cast of botanicals. All those things are actually influences from New World producers, specifically US, that we are now seeing having an impact in Europe. I'm not going to lie to you though, Paul, I still say that probably 95% of the new vermouth on the market the last ten years are rubbish. but the same thing, you know, it always happened this way. We saw it with gin. And I actually think that making good aromaticized wine is much more difficult than making good gin. You have this moment of expansion where every, anything goes, people go crazy. And I think now we're at the time where a few of those projects are falling by the wayside and we're starting to see emerge really interesting projects a bit are a bit more defined, you know?
Paul Clarke
Right. Right. There's always going to be a learning curve when somebody tries something new. You know, we saw it recently with craft distilling here in the U.S. with the boom in craft distilling that started roughly 15 years ago. There were a lot of, you know, whiskeys and gins coming on the market that honestly just weren't very good. But it was all people figuring it out. And, you know, some people go by the wayside, go off, do something else, others stick with it and figure it out and figure out how to do it well. I think, you know, now we're seeing some cool stuff happening, happening with vermouth producers and smaller vermouth producers like you mentioned. And I think really, if we look five, ten years down the line, there could be some fantastic stuff in the bottle.
François Monti
You know, for sure. A couple of years ago I would, would get a new bottle from a small producer in wherever and just looking at, you know, all the text that came with the press release, we were like yeah, and that and that and that’s not going to work. And now, because I've had quite a few good experiences, I'm like, well, who knows? And, and that's, that for me is a positive. And I know that a lot of people are vermouth purists, especially in Italy, but also some good friends of ours in the US are like, Well, no, if it doesn't work in the Negroni, what am I going to do with this? But I think the diversity is very healthy. The diversity we have right now is very, very healthy.
Paul Clarke
Now, we have a few bars in the United States who we're focusing more on vermouth and making it a bigger part of their program and their identity. But we're relatively new to the game here in terms of really putting vermouth front and center. When you look close to home in Europe, as well as around the world, are there particular bars or places you'd highlight as great places to visit for the purpose of drinking vermouth or exploring vermouth and enjoying the overall experience?
François Monti
Well, I assume that places you mentioned in the States are still very much cocktail centric. I mean there are a few aperitivo places that really focus on that style of drink in Europe, but not that many. for example, one of the big ones would be Camparino in Milan, which was okay, had been going on for decades. But the last few years I've seen them sort of modernized their whole set up, and do, you know, really interesting stuff. The same way, for example, Termini in London has been doing great stuff for the last for the last few years, there's a few more. But I wouldn't say there is that huge moment where bars are really focusing on this, especially because probably cocktail consumers don't really have, you know, people don't go to bars, in, in Europe, the cocktail bars in Europe for the same reasons they do in the U.S. So it makes sense that this would happen more in the US than it does. I mean, a place like Dante, for example, was one of the pioneers of this in the US. I would say. I'm not sure that very concept in Europe seems to me like a very interesting way of making European drinks relevant to an American consumer if that if that makes sense. So if you're travelling over, if you're coming over to Europe, I would actually advise you to seek out all the typical traditional bars of Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Turin, Milan, Rome, wherever you need to, really, and see what is being done and how aromatized wines, you know not only vermouth but and also amaro, etc. are being served and do it you know as locals do. France is more problematic in that sense because I don't know why—that country has got such a strong, are so proud about their food traditions, they have such a strong history in terms of aromatized wine, and they don't give a damn. They just, there's no way you can walk into a corner bar in Paris and have an actual good experience with the aromatic wine, which is something you can do freely in Italy and in Spain. So focus on, on Italy, in Spain. If you're, if you're into exploring aromatized wine in Europe, sadly, maybe it's going to be changing soon. Hopefully.
Paul Clarke
François, any final thoughts on vermouth as we head toward the exit here?
François Monti
I would go back to the first questionm is it worthwhile exploring? Yes, it is. It is very much worthwhile to explord vermouth right now. I think you're going tom if if you take the time to do it, you're going to find a fascinating landscape both in terms of history and culture, but also I think in terms of ability to match with food. I think there's still a lot of grounds that people who are listening from the US, I've not covered yet. I think there's a lot of things to be discovered and maybe we're at a stage where, you know, you know, the cocktail beat is, is very well beaten and we have to keep beating it. It's very important that not to let go of all the great work that's been done in the last 20 years. But I think if there is a category that will bring big rewards, to whoever chooses to explore it, right now it is vermouth in particular and aromatized wines in the general. Think of it as, uh, as mezcal or tequila a few years ago, right? You know, everyone went to this, and I think now is the moment to do the same thing with aromatized wines. We want to take them seriously. Value where it's coming from, value what you can do with it, but respecting, you know, the history and the tradition.
Paul Clarke
François, thank you for spending the time and going over your expertise and experience in the vermouth category. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
François Monti
Yeah, hopefully. And it was a pleasure talking to you, discussing all things vermouth. Now I'm going to go and pour myself nice one.
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Paul Clarke
You can find out more about François Monti and his work at francoismonti.com. You can also find him on Instagram @FrancoisMonti. Just follow the link in this episode's notes to get there.
We've got plenty more vermouth coverage for you on our website at Imbibemagazine.com, along with tons of recipes and stories to check out. Be sure to subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all of our future episodes. We've got your social media needs covered on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Threads. And if you're not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then here's your opportunity to change that. Just follow the link in this episode’s notes and we'll be happy to help you out. I'm Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.