Recipe of vermouth at home, stages of preparation

Fortified wine with an added extract of medicinal herbs, spices, alpine wormwood is traditionally called vermouth. In general, the very word, if translated from German, means "wormwood". Of course, you can buy this very popular drink among the people (not to be confused with the Soviet version of the infernal bolus mixture) and in any nearest supermarket. But the real and correct, he will pull a good penny, as imported. Fortunately, there is a recipe for vermouth at home, and not just one! In addition, people who love everything home and natural, it will be interesting to cook it with your own hands. Well, shall we try the recipe of vermouth at home? And then with great pleasure we'll have a homemade and delicious.

Main ingredient

Unlike home absinthe, this fortified drink will not be bitter wormwood, the one with an increased content of thujone, but the lighter her relative that grows in the meadows in Western Europe is Alpine. She is in the question of how to cook vermouth at home, plays a major role, and in some varieties of this alcohol, its concentration in the total mass of components can reach 50 percent.

Some other components

In addition to wormwood, manufacturers of well-known brands can add to this drink about 200 different spices with herbs. Undoubtedly, the exact recipe by firms is always kept in the strictest secrecy. But the main ones are known: yarrow with mint, cinnamon with cardamom, black elderberry with nutmeg. Also in vermouth, you can find a cinchona tree (bark), a dove and tansy, and also a shandra that gives characteristic bitterness. And a zest of lemons, an immortelle with St. John's Wort, juniper (berries), rosemary and lemon balm, lemon grass and chamomile. Here is a rather complicated composition of vermouth drink.

A bit of history

There is an opinion that he applied his hand to the product of this alcohol (and then surely he himself was applied to it), the well-known physician Hippocrates. The first large-scale production was established in 1786 in Turin Antonio Carpano. And since then this drink has won many hearts and countries, being very popular both in its pure form and as a component for a variety of cocktails. Almost all the vermouths that have gained worldwide fame are produced in Italy, in the traditional homeland of this drink. Martini and Campari, Cinzano and some others. The French also produce it and drink it with great pleasure.

Vermouth. Recipe for cooking at home

First of all, advice: to acquire electronic (accurate) weights, if you are going to prepare this drink constantly and with your own hand, since the weight of herbs and spices is relied on in scanty small amounts, sometimes even less than one gram. The first and most popular recipe for vermouth at home is the preparation of essences of herbs with spices separately and separately - fixing the wine material, to which we later add a herbal decoction.

Essence with your own hands

The amount is indicated for one liter of essence, prepared by soaking in alcohol (maceration). We need (in grams): wormwood - 30, thyme - 10, tarhun - 1, elderberry - 6, coriander - 2, lemon and orange peel - 2, peppermint - 5, nutmeg - 5, fennel - 1, elecampane - 1, rosemary, cinnamon, yarrow, dog rose, St. John's wort - 5, ginger, cloves, chamomile, calamus, vanilla - according to 3. We need 75% alcohol - less than a liter. We begin to cook vermouth at home. The recipe for the essence is as follows. All of the above ingredients are stacked arbitrarily in a jar with a capacity of one liter and poured to the top with ethyl alcohol. A little shake and leave to insist (need about 3 weeks) in a not too warm, but a dark place (a closet or a cellar is suitable). It is necessary to stir the composition from time to time. Very important, we will repeat, wormwood. We use only her inflorescence, the upper leaves. In no case are the stems - they will add unnecessary bitterness.

Preparation of the final product

After 21 days of infusion, the mixture will need to be filtered through the folded gauze and squeezed well. You can even drive through a filter of cotton wool. We will no longer need grass, but they can be safely sent to a distillation cube to flavor moonshine (meaning the second distillation). Next, take a liter of dry wine and add in it 65 milliliters of alcohol, but already 95 degrees - in this way fixing it (if possible, use grape alcohols, for example, home-made strong grappa, chacha). In the next stage we will weld a syrup from 120 grams of sugar plus 60 milliliters of purified water: only heat and dilute in water the sweetness until it dissolves completely (you can not boil it). The cooled syrup is added to alcohol fixed with alcohol. We inject 5 milliliters of prepared essences (it is most convenient to measure with a conventional medical syringe, some researchers from Bacchus add more of the essence, but we already act according to our own taste: this ingredient is permissible to be increased by almost half. The resulting vermouth remains poured on glass twist bottles (0.5-1 liter), tightly closed and set aside in a non-warm place to be infused. It will be enough to wait one month, but better Do not suffer two - for these days the taste is balanced and will become a wonderful and fragrant flavor bouquet.

Dry or sweet?

In fact, for domestic preparation of such drinks, only white and dry wines were used before, but recently Catalan style appeared, which assumes the basis - a red semisweet wine. In the above recipe, dry, neutral white is recommended for use, and if the sweetness is insufficient, then just add a little more syrup. Of course, dry vermouth will not like everyone, but only, according to tradition, it will suit cocktails, such as Dry Martini.

Cocktail "Dry martini"

Traditional classic "Dry martini" is prepared simply: one part of the vermouth and six pieces of gin. By the way, many famous people adored this cocktail. For example, Winston Churchill. And Nixon, one of the US presidents, loved "hot": that is, more gin - 6-7 servings. And during the famous dry law in America, Dry Martini was preparing 2 to 1 in order to save precious gin. So, in a glass for mixing we insert a bar spoon and we fall asleep ice. We pour the two ingredients and mix them with circular rotations. We strain the received drink into the boiler glass through the strainer. We decorate with olive on a skewer or twist from a lemon rind. "Dry Martini" is supposed to drink in a few sips (and you can prepare the next serving).