Sunday, March 17, 2013

2012 Ramato, making vermouth from it

I've just tasted the 2012 Ramato - it had never been racked, only sulfited.  Pretty good, still between 20 and 25 ppm SO2, nothing obviously evil bubbling up from the lees, but not having stirred them all along I don't want to go poking in there now and release some hidden gaseous deathblob.

So I think I'll use it for a big batch of vermouth.

Last year's vermouth was based on Yvette Von Boven's recipe in Home Made.  Now I'd like to try something where I stew the herbs in wine rather than seep them in the fortification (the latter is YVB's method).

The Art Of Drink has a very nice article.  So does Last Crumb.  And Serious Eats has an article and recipe with a fraction of the ingredients.    The AOD article reminds me a bit more of amari than vermouth, but historic vermouths were more bitter than American ones.  The Last Crumb list would mean visits to one of the remaining herb shops in town rather than just raiding the pantry of Homebrew....

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