May 6, 2024 • 44 mins
Wines in this wide, complicated category are flavored with herbs and spices, stabilized with liquor, and sweetened (a lot or a little). Anney and Lauren dip into the history and cultures behind vermouth.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Learned Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about vermoot.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, which I do always associate with you, Lauren. Oh yeah,
huh yeah. I feel like you were the person that
told me I should I should give Vermouth more of
a chance.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, that's I did get pretty into it. Maybe, oh gosh,
I don't know what time it is anymore. Maybe around
like seven ish years ago, seven or eight years ago,
there was kind of a big Vermouth boom in the
local Atlanta restaurant scene where all of a sudden, all
of these cool little restaurants had like tasting menus, and
I was like, all right, I'm into tasting weird stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Let's go. And so yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there any
reason it was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh? Good question. Nope, I don't think so. I think
I was. I think just like a drink was in
the rotation. And if there was a reason, it has
gone from my mind.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, first of all, I appreciate how you said good question,
as if I am a good interviewer, as opposed to
the fact that I asked this question every.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Time oh, good question, hard hitting, unexpected, whoa how deep.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But also when you and I were talking about this topic,
you said, there are certain things I can't believe we've
not done. Yeah, thermooth was one.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, right, like seven years in, it seems incredible
to me that we had not done it. And because
we've done all kinds of episodes that like the touch
on It, all kinds of cocktail episodes like the Manhattan
and Martini and the Groni. But yeah, and I think
the reason that we had was because I was like,
(02:00):
that sounds hard. I would like to have an easier
homework tonight, please. And but yeah, you know, in the
spirit of twenty twenty four being our let's do the
word that popped into my mind was annoying, annoying episodes,
the interesting, the challenging episodes.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, here we are. Here we are. But as we've said,
I mean, I feel like listeners, you're getting a real
peak behind the scenes how we choose topics. We do
avoid difficult ones, but also every topic we choose inevitably
becomes more than we thought it would be. Always every time. Yes,
(02:41):
so this is quite comical how many things we've put off,
but how many other things we've done in their place
that were probably equally is a little difficult. Yes, yeah, yeah,
we're speaking of We have done several episodes related.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To Sure yeah. In addition to those cocktail episodes that
I just mentioned, you might also see our episodes on
sherry Absinthe tomorrow. Strangely enough, the Gin and Tonic. I
know that Gin and Tonic doesn't contain Vermouth, but kind
of related material in there. Yeah, pretty much, any of
(03:20):
the Boose episodes, sure yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Brewing, Yeah, some of our holiday episodes for sure, like
we sailing. Yeah, while sailing, I always forget how to
say it, but you know what I mean. Plenty of
those also. But I guess this does bring us to
our question. I guess it does. Vermouth what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, Vermooth is a sort of wide category of aromatized
fortified wines. Usually you're dealing with a base of white
wine made from grapes that's then infused or otherwise mixed
with aromatic plants and then made more alcoholic and stable
with the addition of a neutral liquor. The plants used
can really vary, but common ones include bitter things like wormwood, citrus,
(04:14):
peel quina, Gentian and rhubarb. Fremooth can range from like
sweet and sort of sticky to quite dry and thin,
from nearly opaque to very translucent, and from deep scarlet
in color to rose to amber to like a pale,
pale yellow green. Note that color is not always an
(04:37):
indicator of sweetness. Important Note Yeah, the result again can
really vary, but will be some combination of bitter, sweet
and sort of spiced floral woody.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah. Fremooth can be consumed straight room temperature or slightly
chilled or on ice, or it can be mixed into
cocktails or used in cooking, especially in sauces and marinades.
It's like, it's like if you looked at a glass
of wine and went, you know, this could be weirder.
We could make this weirder. Hm, I think that's I
(05:08):
think that's a Saber motto right there. We can always
make it weirder.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
As we can.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Remooth is like it's like, uh, if your wine spent
a few years wandering around in the woods with your
like foresty magic user of choice. I'm personally thinking of
rat Agasta the brown.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, it's like a wine that went on a after
after some journey, yeah, a little gap year.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it's like drinking. It is like hiking through the
woods and finding that your beverage as it's changed as
you are by the experience of like all of those
towering trees and tiny blossoms and patches of moss and
dapples of sunlight.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's a wine that's seen some things.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It's the truth.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's the truth.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All of these aromatic, aromatic liquors and wines feel very
much like it's seen some stuff. Yeah, Okay, if you
are a native English speaker, you may have heard of
like basically two kinds of vermouth, sweet red Italian vermouth
(06:28):
and dry white French vermouth. You put the first one
in Manhattan and the second one in a martini. And
that's low key why most of them knew about them
for a long time. This terminology does reflect like a
facet of the history of Remouth, but it doesn't cover
anywhere near the breadth and depth of what Vermouth actually is.
(06:49):
More in this more in the history part in the
history section, but okay, more recently, you'll often hear remooth
described in three categories. Sweet red also called rosso or
rojo or rouge, sweet white also called bianco or blanco
or blanc, and dry white also called seco or sec.
(07:10):
Though that also leaves out like a range of amber
and rose styles, it can still be useful for reading
labels if you're unfamiliar with a brand of remouth and
want like a basic idea of what you're in for
and don't have Google with you for some reason, or
ask a ask a friendly store human. I recommend talking
to friendly store humans unless you don't want to and
(07:31):
then don't. Yeah, so let's go into how remouth is
made to kind of get an idea of what it
is right to make a remouth. You take wine often
you start with a white wine made from grapes, but
you can use other fruits if you want. You'll probably
start with a relatively neutral flavor of wine because it'll
be competing with other flavors, but you can do what
you want. You'll then add botanical flavors, maybe steeped directly
(07:54):
into the wine, may be extracted separately. And let us
talk about those botanicals for a minute, because Okay, the
traditional main flavor in Vermouth is wormwood, which is a
type of leafy herb, A taxonomical name artemisia absynthium. I think, yes,
wormwood is a traditional ingredient in absinthe. No drinking vermouth
(08:17):
or absinthe will not give you hallucinations. You're not consuming
enough wormwood through them. But yeah, wormwood is bitter and herbal,
sort of like a super cyan stage. Yeah. After that,
it's like kind of difficult to say what the most
popular flavorings are because, like Amari, recipes for remooth are
(08:38):
often guarded secrets, and as I said before, they can
vary just wildly. A dry white might incorporate peppermint and
lemon peel and cori under seed. Sweet red might include
bitter orange peel, rose petals, and ginger. Sweet white might
have hibiscus, basil and cinnamon. Other than that, I read
(09:01):
ingredients ranging from saffron to thyme, anis, vanilla, camomeal, cardamom, rosemerry, strawberry, cocoa.
You often have like thirty plus different flavorings in there. Dang, Yeah, yep.
A lot of these ingredients will have a bittering effect
(09:22):
on the wine, which you're gonna then want to balance
with some kind of added sweetener, maybe sweet grape, must
juice basically or sugar, either straight or caramelized or honey.
You can sweeten it a little bit or a lot,
and you're going to fortify your remooth with some kind
of distilled spirit which will bring it to its final
alcohol level and also help preserve it and give it
(09:43):
like a wee kick compared to straight wine, neutral grape
distillate brandy is common. Some producers might age remooth, maybe
in wood barrels, to develop further flavors. Again, a lot
of different production methods can go depending on how you
want to be able to label it. Because okay, laws
about what can be labeled removeth very in different places.
(10:06):
The European Union has the strictest designations. They're removed must
contain something in the Artemisia genus, usually wormwood. It can
only be sweetened with natural sweeteners. The final product must
contain at least seventy five percent wine and have between
fourteen point five and twenty two percent alcohol by volume,
having been fortified with whatever distilled liquor you like. There
(10:29):
are also five categories from sweet to dry for the
EU labeling standards, depending on the grams of sugar per
liter in the final product, and those those category labels
are sweet, semi sweet, semi dry, dry, and extra dry. Yeah.
There are a few types of remot that have geographical distinctions,
(10:51):
either nationally or internationally, which means that they are produced
under more strict rules than those those are removed pitino
removed d chimberry shimbiri. There you go, share great. I
don't know. French and a remoth day rey use remouth
is generally in the category of a paratifs, also called
a parativos, because they are traditionally meant to be consumed
(11:14):
in a small amount before a meal, as a sort
of a palette or appetite opener. Yeah. In cultures where
this is a thing, like any place with strong influence
from like these specific areas of Italy, France, and Spain,
this a paratif thing is not just a drink. It
is a social situation, like it's a way to transition
(11:35):
from day to evening, maybe with some snacks. I've read
it referred to as sacred y'all, y'all write in. I
do not have personal experience with this, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow, yes, please write it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But yeah, these days, remooths find their way into all
kinds of other applications. Mixed with soda water for a
sort of sprits, or mixed with liquors and other ingredients
to form lots of different cocktails. And yes, it's sometimes
used in cooking. The dry white type is just so
nice with like a seafood sauce. Oh yeah, good science.
Note here vermouth is fortified, but it's still perishable once opened,
(12:14):
like stored in the fridge after you've started in on
a bottle, and just be aware that it'll start losing
its charms after like a week or so.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So oh't no, it's like me on a vacation.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, gets a little bit rougher around the edges, Yeah,
a little flat maybe, like we can it's a little.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Drink responsibly? Yes, yes, always, Yeah, yeah, that's all I
gotta say.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
We do, all right. The global market for vermouth is valued.
It's somewhere over ten billion dollars a year, or maybe
twice that much, with the sweet red types accounting for
nearly half of that. I read a lot of conflicting
numbers on this one. Basically, though, like vermouth is on
the rise and the dry types are starting to take
up like a larger part of the market, So that's interesting.
(13:19):
The top exporters are Italy, France, and Spain. The top
importers are Russia, the US, Poland and Germany. Cut science
thing that I it's not really a number, but like
I couldn't help but include it here. As I'm googling,
like whatever the thing we're talking about science, sometimes these
completely unrelated things come up and they're just so so
(13:41):
nerdy and joyful. Okay. So, in the world of molecular dynamics,
there is an application of molecules known as Martini that
was developed in two thousand and four. I don't really
understand why, but that's okay. Like, like two decades later,
twenty twenty three, these researchers were suggesting a coding framework
(14:05):
for modeling this type of molecular system that they called VERMOUTH,
standing for the Versatile Modular Universal Transformation Helper. I love
that because you know they use it in conversations. Oh yeah,
and I just love how hard they worked to get there.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You know they were just giggling about it anyway. Yeah beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean that's where I am every time with the titles,
I'm like, ah, this is great, this is genius.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I don't think we've mentioned this on air in a while.
Annie does send me a whole list of titles for
every episode that we then, you know, like like kind
of workshop into the final form.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
But I love how I send some to you that
I'm like, we can't use this one, but I need
you to know I thought of it. No one else
will get it, perhaps, but I need you to know,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And then there's a bunch that are based on like
weird song lyrics and stuff like that, and like like
specific last of us references and.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
They're so specific, like I send twenty and probably only
like one third is usable.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
There are things of beauty. There are things of beauty.
Oh all right, I couldn't find I couldn't find more,
but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. There there are
a number of remooth festivals. All of the ones that
I found are in Spain, which makes sense because Spain
is currently trying to popularize it's remouth on a on
a wider market. France and Italy have been kind of
(15:55):
like the two main internationally known like pegs of Remo
and Spain is kind of.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Like, oh yeah, we exist. Too.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
But yeah, so one in Barcelona is happening this very
weekend May third through fifth, shockingly timely on our part.
It's called Vermouth and Soul and it's like a jazz
slush remote festival. Oo right right. Another one from Spain
just passed in March was the ninth Annual International Vermouth
(16:25):
and a Partie Fair.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Love that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And I think that the fifth annual Vermouth Festival in Rais,
Spain is happening early this June in celebration of the
fourteenth anniversary of the area having like a national designation
of origin for its wines in general beyond Vermouth. Yeah,
it's part of a larger wine festival that one looks.
They all look super fascinating. Again, if anyone has ever
(16:51):
been to any of these specific festivals or others, let.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Us know, please, please let us know. Well, we do
have quite a history for.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You, we do, we do, yeppers. Yeah, and we are
going to get into that as soon as we get
back from a quick break for word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So
the history of Vermouth is very much disputed. Oh wow.
But Hippocrates, yes, yep, apparently made something close to Vermouth
as far back as four hundred BC in Greece, and
(17:49):
to make it he would macerate didney flowers and wormwood
along with local.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Wine, Didney being a type of oregano majora type of
type herb.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I didn't know what it was, so I had to
look it up. So, yep, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I had to look it up too, because I thought
it sounds like a potion ingrediment. That's what it is.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Mostly extinct now, so good job humans.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Wow, that was a downer. Sorry, No, it's okay. We
need to be realistic with the truth. I just wasn't
expecting it, so really, my bad. No, it's okay, that's
all right. Yeah, never apologize. So the result of this
was a sweet ish digestive called Hippocratic wine. He of
(18:37):
course prescribed it for all kinds of things, including period
pains and rheumatism. So you can look back at our
episodes we've done on things like the humors for an instance. Yeah,
but for a long time, people believed a good diet
needed to include a wide range of flavors.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Which is weirdly true. It is true, it is not
in the way that they were thinking, but.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Not in the way that they were thinking. But there's
several things that looking back, I'm like, you were onto something.
Oh yeah, yeah, we just hadn't figured it all out yet,
which we still haven't in a lot of cases. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, My science is so fun.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's a great time to achieve this kind of wide
range of flavors is good diet. People would add herbs
and spices into things like wine, including absinthe too, by
the way, to create a tonic that was believed to
help and even prevent a whole host of issues. That
(19:43):
being said, according to one source, I found some trace
removed back to a wine out of China that was
spiced with rice, malt, honey, and fruit, going back as
far as eight thousand years ago. India most likely had
a version too, However, the author speculates and this was
(20:03):
from this was actually from an event. Notice I found
about somebody who had done a lot of research and
had written a book about Vermouth who was doing this talk.
He speculated that Vermouth probably popped up in a couple
of places separately.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah. Yeah, at this point, distillation didn't exist yet, so
it wouldn't have been fortified, but certainly adding wormwood to
wine was a thing that right, It seems like people
again they're like, oh, I like this thing, and I
like this thing. I'm going to smooth them together.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, yes, exactly, And as always, it goes back to
your definition of a thing. Yeah right. So meanwhile, over
in Rome, these types of wine based tonics became more
complex as they gained access to more spices via trade routes.
(20:59):
They added things like wormwood and honey to make these
really aromatic wines that were in high demand, perhaps particularly
enjoyed at the end of a mule.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
After distillation did catch on in Europe right around what
was that, like like a thousand CE or so, people
began fortifying aromatic wines with brandy to help them last longer.
That was like early thirteen hundred CE or so that
records of that started popping up.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right and during the Middle Ages. Two main remooth production
spots emerged in Europe, one in the Piedmont region of Italy,
where a lot of botanicals were available, and one near
France's southeast border. Both were within the borders of the
Kingdom of Savoy, so people often report that it originated
(21:47):
from there.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, yeah, and that's one way of settling the argument
of whether removeth is from France or Italy. It's from Savoy,
which was a political state that lay right across the
modern border friends in Italy near the Mediterranean coast from
around one thousand CE through the formation of the Kingdom
of Italy in the eighteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yes, and Savoy had a lot of grapes. But these
grapes didn't produce the best wine. I say that with
a laugh because it's always kind of comical to me
about I don't know what's the best wine. But yes,
they didn't produce the best wine. However, producers did have
access to a lot of ingredients and spices thanks to
(22:32):
their proximity to these trade routes, including things like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger,
and rhubarb, and people started experimenting. And this many sources.
I read trace our modern day Vermouth to Alessio di
Pimonte our Jeremano Ruscielli, who recorded recipes for wormwood wine
(22:57):
in the mid fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, so there was this home remedy and recipe book
first published in Venice in fifteen fifty five that became
really widespread over the next few decades, it was called
of the Secrets of the Reverend Don Alicio Piedmontes. If
you could read in Europe during this period, and more
(23:20):
people did than you probably think, you probably came across
some version of this book as it was translated and
amended and updated by all kinds of editors and publishers.
Because copyright wasn't a thing yet, they were just trying
to sell more copies of this useful and popular book.
The thing is, Alessio doesn't seem to have been a
(23:44):
real person. The prevailing theory for a long time was
that this writer and early science dude Rasquelli had used
Alessio as a pen name and written this book. But
that's based on his own claim after Secrets was already
popular and he was trying to sell his own recipe
slash remedy books, so no one really knows. At any rate.
(24:07):
Various types of aroeumatized wine, including versions with wormwood, were
being made in Piedmont and beyond at this time, and
I'm pretty sure that there are recipes for it in
this book. At some point, yep, Remouth did not have
its name yet at this point though, the product was
(24:30):
just called wormwood wine in like whatever language was being used,
but back to Savoy. So in the fifteen fifties when
this book was published, the capital of Savoy was Shambairi
on what is modernly the French side of the Alps,
and the ruler was technically a duke under the Holy
Roman Empire. That's just a note. I just I looked
(24:53):
it up because I was so confused about this whole
Kingdom of Savoy thing. And then it was talking about
the ruler being a duke. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yes, yes, needed to share. Wow, thank you. To better
stave off the threat of French invasion, the Duke of
Savoy relocated the capital to the Piedmont region in fifteen.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Sixty three, specifically to a city called Tarno, which you
may know as Turin and in English.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yes, and they ended up pretty much adopting this style
of aromatized wine in the royal court.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Meanwhile, wormwood was also known in Germanic states further north
as a medicinal herb and a bittering agent and like
a brewer's helper before hops were popular, and as a
flavoring for wine. This was possibly influenced by aromatic wines
from Piedmont. Many question marks. Couldn't get to the bottom
(25:49):
of that. At any rate. The Germanic word for wormwood
was remote, so the product was called remote wine.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
There, yes, and eventually the vermouthvine found its way to
France's aristocracy, where some pronounced it Barmouth.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Back in to Reno, it really maintained that these these
wormwood wines really maintained their popularity with the Royal Court
of Savoy.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
They even gave it an official title in seventeen sixty eight,
a perretivo de courte Love it, Yes, I love it too.
The demand for this product led to the proliferation of
shops in Torino offering concentrates of wormwood that vendors or consumers.
(26:37):
I couldn't get really to the bottom of this because
it sounded like it was a specific thing to the shops.
But then it also sounded like they sold the concentrate. Okay,
so people could make it, but yeah, you would add
it to the wine as a producer or a consumer
to make this yourself. One of these shops started offering
the first commercial brand of Vermouth in seventeen eighty six,
(27:00):
formulated by Antonio Bendetto Carpano. He used Moscato grapes to
make a higher quality wine than was typical for these
earlier vermuse and tapped local monks for ingredients. And he
called his product Remote.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And yes, that carpano. If you are familiar with vermouths,
that is one of the big brands to this day.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yes, and it did not take long for his Remote
to gain some noteworthy fans, including the Duke of Savoy
at the time, who established it as the court's preferred wine.
Since more folks spoke French than German in this region,
people started widely calling it vermuth.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
All of this popularity bred imitators or enthusiasts I guess
around Tourno and back in Chambeiri and down along the
coast of the Mediterranean, stretching mostly westward towards Spain.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yes, in the eighteen hundreds, at herbalist in Lyon, France,
Joseph Noilly something like that decided that the almost salty
flavor created in the process of shipping wine and barrels
was pretty desirable actually, and something that he wanted to replicate.
He moved to Marseilles in eighteen thirteen, very confident that
(28:18):
he could find a market for it. He added flavors
like wormwood to his wine, along with things like bitter
orange and camomeal. He called his product Noiley Prats, which
also yes that one. I'm sorry if I was pronouncing it,
but if you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Know, you know that one.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, yep, yep. A bunch of other companies followed suit
with their own products, but for the next several decades
to Reno remained the top producer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, long standing brands like Martini and Rossi started up
during this time. It's like, it is hard to overstate
how popular this sweet red vermooth was here and also
Trino was was simultaneously developing like a serious cafe culture.
And those shops would sometimes make their own house of remouth,
which to this day you can still go to there
(29:10):
and get.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yes. And they grew really protective over the product too.
In this region. The Duke of Savoyd decreed that the
wine could not be sold outside of the Piedmont region
in eighteen forty.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah. So yeah, so this is where we get the
beginnings of that dichotomy of like dry white French styles
versus sweet red Terriino styles later returned to Italian styles
after Torino became part of the Kingdom Italy a couple
decades later. But yeah, outside of those two dominant styles,
other styles of Remouth were being developed. For example, the
(29:49):
sweet White style came out of Chambeiri, thanks largely to
the innovations and popularity of the Dolin brand, which set
up shop there around eighteen thirty. Spanish products of Vermouth
seems to have gotten started a little bit later towards
the turn of the century, but certainly like Vermouth had
already been a popular product in Raised Spain, which was
(30:09):
a major hub of wine trade during the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Vermouth was also present at the eighteen fifty three World's
Fair in New York City, and around this time mixed
cocktails really started taking off around the globe, and several
of them incorporated removeth.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, there were also a few waves of Italian immigration
around this time, which brought Remove to places like the
United States and Argentina and further World's Fairs in eighteen
fifty six and eighteen sixty seven, like cemented the international
presence of Vermouth and included some really beautiful illustration posters.
(30:48):
Like Like illustrated posters that were gorgeous look them up.
Look them up. Yes, skipping ahead a little bit, World
War two really mucked up the existence of remouth in
the US for a while, starting with a halt on
imports for perhaps obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right, there was also post World War II racism against
Italians and the low quality of many domestic replacements.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And you would think that remouth would have come back
with the martini boom of like the nineteen fifties, But
this was the era of the clean tasting vodka martini.
Noiley Pratt, I hope that we're saying that right, began
selling this like less flavorful, extra dry remoth here for
those martinis.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Kind Of interestingly too, people in the US at least
didn't like the whole medicinal vibe of remouth which had
been so popular, made it so popular for a while.
But that being said, for some communities, like Italian immigrants
in the US, their love never waned.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Oh yeah, And there are other places like Argentina where
it's popularity mostly increased. Local pt of remots there started
in the nineteen twenties or thirties. Also, there was a
wave of popularity for like simple slash kind of retro
vermouth sippers in the United States and the UK around
the nineteen seventies, kind of along with the rise of
like fresh Mediterranean style cuisine and sort of this like
(32:17):
aspirational Mediterranean vacation concept. Yeah, there are some amazing commercials
out of the UK television ads that mostly involved Joan
Collins getting remooths spilled on her accidentally.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Sorry, wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Full of surprises today.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
The remooth episode ghost plays who okay?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
As trends tend to go, though, towards the end of
the nineteen hundreds, Vermouth came to be considered like a
little bit old fashioned in communities that didn't have like
strong traditions towards it, especially during that heck in dark
Age of the cocktail around the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
The Dark Age of the Cocktail.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But starting around the turn of the twenty first century,
a number of wineries and distilleries outside of the traditional
areas started producing their own remouths, including the US and
the UK, Australia and Germany, and new makers started really
playing with like riffs on the concept, like what wines
go into it, what you add to those? Perhaps in
(33:32):
response to this, in twenty nineteen, the European Union gave
a Vermouth di Torino a protected geographical indication. These vermouths
must be made in Piedmont using Italian wormwood and wine.
There's also a Spieriore designation that focuses on Piedmont produced
wines and herbs, and in twenty twenty three, after a
(33:56):
three year campaign, that term of vermouth di torino also
gained legal protection in the United States. So sometimes there,
sorry about my yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and sorry about
my pronunciation being all over the place in this episode
that's it's been a long.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Day, Yeah, blanket apologies, like kind of as always like meal,
And I will say Vermouth anecdotally has certainly been part
of the craft cocktail movement in the US. I have
seen a lot more interest in it, partly from you, Lauren,
(34:34):
in the past decade or so.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, yeah, like the whole craft beverage movement more broadly. Yeah,
it's been featured on a lot of non European menus
by itself outside of cocktails, and there has been like
a Distiller led push for education and for clarity and
labeling as part of marketing efforts not to diminish the
cocktail part.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Though.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, it's also seen extra interest in the recent and
of low alcohol cocktails since what was that like twenty
eighteen ish, maybe, as it has about half the alcohol
content of liquors and therefore it can make for lighter cocktails.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah yeah, I think Remoose's future is bright. Oh yeah,
it does feel like a it's a very potion esque vibe.
Oh yeah. The Tomorrow episode was front of mine for
me when I was doing this research.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah. That was a fun one. If you haven't heard it, oh.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, yeah, and great great interview with the excellent humans
at the Eta Rhine Distillery in Asheville, who then right
gave us that beautiful tale about how they got their
name that we use story Yeah yeah, ghost story that
we did in a Halloween episode.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, oh yes. But also I do mind it fascinating
as people who this is our job and we get
invited to stuff sometimes or sometimes we just go to
stuff whether we were invited or not.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Famous party crashers the Savor days.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yes, I've been to several events where it'll be like,
what you get wrong about sherry, and it'll they'll go
through the history of sherry and they'll have tastings and
pairings and all this stuff. So that business part of
it to me is very fascinating. Yeah, and I feel
like Vermouth is going through that or has just been
(36:37):
through that where it's like, no, you can just drink it.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You can drink it, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, or you can put into cocktail, or you can
have a like lower alcohol content. Like yeah, it's just
really interesting to me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Oh yeah, oh heck yeah, and especially right, like, it's
so fascinating that all of these brands have one hundreds
of years of history and are still going. And some
of them have like specifically brought back classic recipes like
my favorite sort of go to sweet red Italian formouth
(37:14):
is one by Carpano that released this Antica Formula, which
is based on some of Carpano's original notes for making remouth,
and it's kind of like their throwback and it's so good.
Oh my goodness, it makes a delicious Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Okay, good note, good note. Yeah, it's so cool to
the history of it, but also fascinating to see the
kind of remember this though.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah. Yeah. I also I know nothing about Italian history
other than what Shakespeare wrote, who I'm pretty sure also
didn't know anything about Italian history, so that's always fun
in these episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Well, listeners, you can always write in we love hearing
from this. But I think that's what we have to
say about Remove for now.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It is. We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with listeners. It's very magical,
(38:44):
thank you, Annie.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Removeth is magical, it is, it is, so are these
listener mails. I have to say. We continue to get
messages about Mountain Dew, which is great, but now we're
getting a lot about thousand Islands. Oh, Place's aces beautiful
coming so good, but okay, Jacob wrote, I'd completely forgotten
(39:11):
about the Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning until you mentioned it.
Considering it was a KFC exclusive, a honey peach flavor
and the down home vibe of old mountain dew and KFC,
it's pretty clear that it was trying to be a
cross between sweet Tea and white Lightning another name for moonshine.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I can't believe I didn't put this together me either,
that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
When I read this, I was like, I need to
go sit in a corner or something that What.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Did I not realize? It's beautiful. I adore this. I
adore everything about this. What a what a beautiful further
marketing of this increasingly elusive moonshine connection.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yes, that's so great. I love how there's still like moonshine,
but moonshine. Yeah, remember these were our roots. You can't
have moonshine, but we'll hint at it. Yep, it's great.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's great for a soda. Oh, Alicia, Alicia, I'm not sure.
Sorry about just words. I'm sorry about words today. Okay,
here we are. Uh, they wrote It's been a while
since I've written in, but I listened to the episode
one Thousand Island Dressing and had to write in. I
was born and raised in the Thousand Islands, and I
(40:38):
can tell you that the story about the dressing is baffling.
There are just so many opinions about the origin and
in the area. People are so passionate about it. I've
heard more arguments than I would like to admit. I'm
sorry to inform you, but George Bolt never actually lived
in Bolt Castle. The project on Heart Island was abandoned.
I've visited many times and my dad actually worked maintenance
(41:01):
crew there. They're trying to complete it now. I would
recommend doing the self tour there, the two Nation tour
on Uncle Sam boat Tours, and going to Chipewa Bay
to visit Singer Castle as well. The story about the
Thousand Islands in is what most of us go by.
In a way, what many of us claim is that
it was created on a fishing boat in the middle
of the river. The location is very much disputed, as
(41:24):
people claim the boat was in Clayton and Alexandria Bay.
The Thousand Islands Inn has a big claim for it,
though unfortunately I don't believe this location is open at
this time due to local politics. In this episode, I
found myself yelling out facts before y'all said them. Great
job on the island count it's a common tourist question,
and yes, an island is very specifically a land mass
(41:47):
exposed year round with one tree. Such a crazy fact.
I spent most of my life working at state parks
in the area, so I needed to learn a lot
of information about it. As always, y'all did a wonderful
job with this episode. It was exciting to hear about
my hometown. Oh yay, Yes, that's so good. I'm glad
a whole heck, that's like way off honestly, yes, And
(42:12):
thank you so much for writing in because the experience
of someone that lives in the places we're just you know,
it's so valuable and so great. Yeah, yeah, really really affirming.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
But also I just love this. I love oh yeah,
people are passionate about it, they fight about it.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I love that there's a specific story details, vague but specific,
invented on a fishing boat.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
No, it's no, that's that's a good way of you know,
like like it. Well, it wasn't invented here or here.
It was in the middle of the river.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Can we all agree it was the middle of the river.
Is that okay with everybody?
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Also, good tour recommendations. Thank you. It looks it looks
so beautiful, Like I I really I really want to
go to there.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I do as well, and I would love to hear
these facts and passionate opinions. And also, yes, thank you
for confirming because I know we mentioned in the episode
we weren't sure. Yeah, George Bolt had ever gone lived there? Yeah, yes,
I can't believe. I mean it can, but wow, they're
(43:23):
still working on it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
That's that is all. It is very very wild. But yes,
we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thanks to both
of these listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to as you can, Our email is Hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts on my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always, Toy superproducer, Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
of more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Learned Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about vermoot.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, which I do always associate with you, Lauren. Oh yeah,
huh yeah. I feel like you were the person that
told me I should I should give Vermouth more of
a chance.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, that's I did get pretty into it. Maybe, oh gosh,
I don't know what time it is anymore. Maybe around
like seven ish years ago, seven or eight years ago,
there was kind of a big Vermouth boom in the
local Atlanta restaurant scene where all of a sudden, all
of these cool little restaurants had like tasting menus, and
I was like, all right, I'm into tasting weird stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Let's go. And so yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there any
reason it was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh? Good question. Nope, I don't think so. I think
I was. I think just like a drink was in
the rotation. And if there was a reason, it has
gone from my mind.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, first of all, I appreciate how you said good question,
as if I am a good interviewer, as opposed to
the fact that I asked this question every.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Time oh, good question, hard hitting, unexpected, whoa how deep.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But also when you and I were talking about this topic,
you said, there are certain things I can't believe we've
not done. Yeah, thermooth was one.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, yeah, right, like seven years in, it seems incredible
to me that we had not done it. And because
we've done all kinds of episodes that like the touch
on It, all kinds of cocktail episodes like the Manhattan
and Martini and the Groni. But yeah, and I think
the reason that we had was because I was like,
(02:00):
that sounds hard. I would like to have an easier
homework tonight, please. And but yeah, you know, in the
spirit of twenty twenty four being our let's do the
word that popped into my mind was annoying, annoying episodes,
the interesting, the challenging episodes.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, here we are. Here we are. But as we've said,
I mean, I feel like listeners, you're getting a real
peak behind the scenes how we choose topics. We do
avoid difficult ones, but also every topic we choose inevitably
becomes more than we thought it would be. Always every time. Yes,
(02:41):
so this is quite comical how many things we've put off,
but how many other things we've done in their place
that were probably equally is a little difficult. Yes, yeah, yeah,
we're speaking of We have done several episodes related.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To Sure yeah. In addition to those cocktail episodes that
I just mentioned, you might also see our episodes on
sherry Absinthe tomorrow. Strangely enough, the Gin and Tonic. I
know that Gin and Tonic doesn't contain Vermouth, but kind
of related material in there. Yeah, pretty much, any of
(03:20):
the Boose episodes, sure yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Brewing, Yeah, some of our holiday episodes for sure, like
we sailing. Yeah, while sailing, I always forget how to
say it, but you know what I mean. Plenty of
those also. But I guess this does bring us to
our question. I guess it does. Vermouth what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, Vermooth is a sort of wide category of aromatized
fortified wines. Usually you're dealing with a base of white
wine made from grapes that's then infused or otherwise mixed
with aromatic plants and then made more alcoholic and stable
with the addition of a neutral liquor. The plants used
can really vary, but common ones include bitter things like wormwood, citrus,
(04:14):
peel quina, Gentian and rhubarb. Fremooth can range from like
sweet and sort of sticky to quite dry and thin,
from nearly opaque to very translucent, and from deep scarlet
in color to rose to amber to like a pale,
pale yellow green. Note that color is not always an
(04:37):
indicator of sweetness. Important Note Yeah, the result again can
really vary, but will be some combination of bitter, sweet
and sort of spiced floral woody.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah. Fremooth can be consumed straight room temperature or slightly
chilled or on ice, or it can be mixed into
cocktails or used in cooking, especially in sauces and marinades.
It's like, it's like if you looked at a glass
of wine and went, you know, this could be weirder.
We could make this weirder. Hm, I think that's I
(05:08):
think that's a Saber motto right there. We can always
make it weirder.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
As we can.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Remooth is like it's like, uh, if your wine spent
a few years wandering around in the woods with your
like foresty magic user of choice. I'm personally thinking of
rat Agasta the brown.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, it's like a wine that went on a after
after some journey, yeah, a little gap year.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it's like drinking. It is like hiking through the
woods and finding that your beverage as it's changed as
you are by the experience of like all of those
towering trees and tiny blossoms and patches of moss and
dapples of sunlight.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
It's a wine that's seen some things.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
It's the truth.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's the truth.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All of these aromatic, aromatic liquors and wines feel very
much like it's seen some stuff. Yeah, Okay, if you
are a native English speaker, you may have heard of
like basically two kinds of vermouth, sweet red Italian vermouth
(06:28):
and dry white French vermouth. You put the first one
in Manhattan and the second one in a martini. And
that's low key why most of them knew about them
for a long time. This terminology does reflect like a
facet of the history of Remouth, but it doesn't cover
anywhere near the breadth and depth of what Vermouth actually is.
(06:49):
More in this more in the history part in the
history section, but okay, more recently, you'll often hear remooth
described in three categories. Sweet red also called rosso or
rojo or rouge, sweet white also called bianco or blanco
or blanc, and dry white also called seco or sec.
(07:10):
Though that also leaves out like a range of amber
and rose styles, it can still be useful for reading
labels if you're unfamiliar with a brand of remouth and
want like a basic idea of what you're in for
and don't have Google with you for some reason, or
ask a ask a friendly store human. I recommend talking
to friendly store humans unless you don't want to and
(07:31):
then don't. Yeah, so let's go into how remouth is
made to kind of get an idea of what it
is right to make a remouth. You take wine often
you start with a white wine made from grapes, but
you can use other fruits if you want. You'll probably
start with a relatively neutral flavor of wine because it'll
be competing with other flavors, but you can do what
you want. You'll then add botanical flavors, maybe steeped directly
(07:54):
into the wine, may be extracted separately. And let us
talk about those botanicals for a minute, because Okay, the
traditional main flavor in Vermouth is wormwood, which is a
type of leafy herb, A taxonomical name artemisia absynthium. I think, yes,
wormwood is a traditional ingredient in absinthe. No drinking vermouth
(08:17):
or absinthe will not give you hallucinations. You're not consuming
enough wormwood through them. But yeah, wormwood is bitter and herbal,
sort of like a super cyan stage. Yeah. After that,
it's like kind of difficult to say what the most
popular flavorings are because, like Amari, recipes for remooth are
(08:38):
often guarded secrets, and as I said before, they can
vary just wildly. A dry white might incorporate peppermint and
lemon peel and cori under seed. Sweet red might include
bitter orange peel, rose petals, and ginger. Sweet white might
have hibiscus, basil and cinnamon. Other than that, I read
(09:01):
ingredients ranging from saffron to thyme, anis, vanilla, camomeal, cardamom, rosemerry, strawberry, cocoa.
You often have like thirty plus different flavorings in there. Dang, Yeah, yep.
A lot of these ingredients will have a bittering effect
(09:22):
on the wine, which you're gonna then want to balance
with some kind of added sweetener, maybe sweet grape, must
juice basically or sugar, either straight or caramelized or honey.
You can sweeten it a little bit or a lot,
and you're going to fortify your remooth with some kind
of distilled spirit which will bring it to its final
alcohol level and also help preserve it and give it
(09:43):
like a wee kick compared to straight wine, neutral grape
distillate brandy is common. Some producers might age remooth, maybe
in wood barrels, to develop further flavors. Again, a lot
of different production methods can go depending on how you
want to be able to label it. Because okay, laws
about what can be labeled removeth very in different places.
(10:06):
The European Union has the strictest designations. They're removed must
contain something in the Artemisia genus, usually wormwood. It can
only be sweetened with natural sweeteners. The final product must
contain at least seventy five percent wine and have between
fourteen point five and twenty two percent alcohol by volume,
having been fortified with whatever distilled liquor you like. There
(10:29):
are also five categories from sweet to dry for the
EU labeling standards, depending on the grams of sugar per
liter in the final product, and those those category labels
are sweet, semi sweet, semi dry, dry, and extra dry. Yeah.
There are a few types of remot that have geographical distinctions,
(10:51):
either nationally or internationally, which means that they are produced
under more strict rules than those those are removed pitino
removed d chimberry shimbiri. There you go, share great. I
don't know. French and a remoth day rey use remouth
is generally in the category of a paratifs, also called
a parativos, because they are traditionally meant to be consumed
(11:14):
in a small amount before a meal, as a sort
of a palette or appetite opener. Yeah. In cultures where
this is a thing, like any place with strong influence
from like these specific areas of Italy, France, and Spain,
this a paratif thing is not just a drink. It
is a social situation, like it's a way to transition
(11:35):
from day to evening, maybe with some snacks. I've read
it referred to as sacred y'all, y'all write in. I
do not have personal experience with this, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Wow, yes, please write it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But yeah, these days, remooths find their way into all
kinds of other applications. Mixed with soda water for a
sort of sprits, or mixed with liquors and other ingredients
to form lots of different cocktails. And yes, it's sometimes
used in cooking. The dry white type is just so
nice with like a seafood sauce. Oh yeah, good science.
Note here vermouth is fortified, but it's still perishable once opened,
(12:14):
like stored in the fridge after you've started in on
a bottle, and just be aware that it'll start losing
its charms after like a week or so.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So oh't no, it's like me on a vacation.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, gets a little bit rougher around the edges, Yeah,
a little flat maybe, like we can it's a little.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Drink responsibly? Yes, yes, always, Yeah, yeah, that's all I
gotta say.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
We do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
We do, all right. The global market for vermouth is valued.
It's somewhere over ten billion dollars a year, or maybe
twice that much, with the sweet red types accounting for
nearly half of that. I read a lot of conflicting
numbers on this one. Basically, though, like vermouth is on
the rise and the dry types are starting to take
up like a larger part of the market, So that's interesting.
(13:19):
The top exporters are Italy, France, and Spain. The top
importers are Russia, the US, Poland and Germany. Cut science
thing that I it's not really a number, but like
I couldn't help but include it here. As I'm googling,
like whatever the thing we're talking about science, sometimes these
completely unrelated things come up and they're just so so
(13:41):
nerdy and joyful. Okay. So, in the world of molecular dynamics,
there is an application of molecules known as Martini that
was developed in two thousand and four. I don't really
understand why, but that's okay. Like, like two decades later,
twenty twenty three, these researchers were suggesting a coding framework
(14:05):
for modeling this type of molecular system that they called VERMOUTH,
standing for the Versatile Modular Universal Transformation Helper. I love
that because you know they use it in conversations. Oh yeah,
and I just love how hard they worked to get there.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You know they were just giggling about it anyway. Yeah beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
I mean that's where I am every time with the titles,
I'm like, ah, this is great, this is genius.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I don't think we've mentioned this on air in a while.
Annie does send me a whole list of titles for
every episode that we then, you know, like like kind
of workshop into the final form.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
But I love how I send some to you that
I'm like, we can't use this one, but I need
you to know I thought of it. No one else
will get it, perhaps, but I need you to know,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And then there's a bunch that are based on like
weird song lyrics and stuff like that, and like like
specific last of us references and.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
They're so specific, like I send twenty and probably only
like one third is usable.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
There are things of beauty. There are things of beauty.
Oh all right, I couldn't find I couldn't find more,
but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. There there are
a number of remooth festivals. All of the ones that
I found are in Spain, which makes sense because Spain
is currently trying to popularize it's remouth on a on
a wider market. France and Italy have been kind of
(15:55):
like the two main internationally known like pegs of Remo
and Spain is kind of.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Like, oh yeah, we exist. Too.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
But yeah, so one in Barcelona is happening this very
weekend May third through fifth, shockingly timely on our part.
It's called Vermouth and Soul and it's like a jazz
slush remote festival. Oo right right. Another one from Spain
just passed in March was the ninth Annual International Vermouth
(16:25):
and a Partie Fair.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Love that.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And I think that the fifth annual Vermouth Festival in Rais,
Spain is happening early this June in celebration of the
fourteenth anniversary of the area having like a national designation
of origin for its wines in general beyond Vermouth. Yeah,
it's part of a larger wine festival that one looks.
They all look super fascinating. Again, if anyone has ever
(16:51):
been to any of these specific festivals or others, let.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Us know, please, please let us know. Well, we do
have quite a history for.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You, we do, we do, yeppers. Yeah, and we are
going to get into that as soon as we get
back from a quick break for word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So
the history of Vermouth is very much disputed. Oh wow.
But Hippocrates, yes, yep, apparently made something close to Vermouth
as far back as four hundred BC in Greece, and
(17:49):
to make it he would macerate didney flowers and wormwood
along with local.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Wine, Didney being a type of oregano majora type of
type herb.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I didn't know what it was, so I had to
look it up. So, yep, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I had to look it up too, because I thought
it sounds like a potion ingrediment. That's what it is.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Mostly extinct now, so good job humans.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Wow, that was a downer. Sorry, No, it's okay. We
need to be realistic with the truth. I just wasn't
expecting it, so really, my bad. No, it's okay, that's
all right. Yeah, never apologize. So the result of this
was a sweet ish digestive called Hippocratic wine. He of
(18:37):
course prescribed it for all kinds of things, including period
pains and rheumatism. So you can look back at our
episodes we've done on things like the humors for an instance. Yeah,
but for a long time, people believed a good diet
needed to include a wide range of flavors.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Which is weirdly true. It is true, it is not
in the way that they were thinking, but.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Not in the way that they were thinking. But there's
several things that looking back, I'm like, you were onto something.
Oh yeah, yeah, we just hadn't figured it all out yet,
which we still haven't in a lot of cases. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, My science is so fun.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's a great time to achieve this kind of wide
range of flavors is good diet. People would add herbs
and spices into things like wine, including absinthe too, by
the way, to create a tonic that was believed to
help and even prevent a whole host of issues. That
(19:43):
being said, according to one source, I found some trace
removed back to a wine out of China that was
spiced with rice, malt, honey, and fruit, going back as
far as eight thousand years ago. India most likely had
a version too, However, the author speculates and this was
(20:03):
from this was actually from an event. Notice I found
about somebody who had done a lot of research and
had written a book about Vermouth who was doing this talk.
He speculated that Vermouth probably popped up in a couple
of places separately.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah. Yeah, at this point, distillation didn't exist yet, so
it wouldn't have been fortified, but certainly adding wormwood to
wine was a thing that right, It seems like people
again they're like, oh, I like this thing, and I
like this thing. I'm going to smooth them together.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, yes, exactly, And as always, it goes back to
your definition of a thing. Yeah right. So meanwhile, over
in Rome, these types of wine based tonics became more
complex as they gained access to more spices via trade routes.
(20:59):
They added things like wormwood and honey to make these
really aromatic wines that were in high demand, perhaps particularly
enjoyed at the end of a mule.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
After distillation did catch on in Europe right around what
was that, like like a thousand CE or so, people
began fortifying aromatic wines with brandy to help them last longer.
That was like early thirteen hundred CE or so that
records of that started popping up.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right and during the Middle Ages. Two main remooth production
spots emerged in Europe, one in the Piedmont region of Italy,
where a lot of botanicals were available, and one near
France's southeast border. Both were within the borders of the
Kingdom of Savoy, so people often report that it originated
(21:47):
from there.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, yeah, and that's one way of settling the argument
of whether removeth is from France or Italy. It's from Savoy,
which was a political state that lay right across the
modern border friends in Italy near the Mediterranean coast from
around one thousand CE through the formation of the Kingdom
of Italy in the eighteen sixties.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yes, and Savoy had a lot of grapes. But these
grapes didn't produce the best wine. I say that with
a laugh because it's always kind of comical to me
about I don't know what's the best wine. But yes,
they didn't produce the best wine. However, producers did have
access to a lot of ingredients and spices thanks to
(22:32):
their proximity to these trade routes, including things like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger,
and rhubarb, and people started experimenting. And this many sources.
I read trace our modern day Vermouth to Alessio di
Pimonte our Jeremano Ruscielli, who recorded recipes for wormwood wine
(22:57):
in the mid fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, so there was this home remedy and recipe book
first published in Venice in fifteen fifty five that became
really widespread over the next few decades, it was called
of the Secrets of the Reverend Don Alicio Piedmontes. If
you could read in Europe during this period, and more
(23:20):
people did than you probably think, you probably came across
some version of this book as it was translated and
amended and updated by all kinds of editors and publishers.
Because copyright wasn't a thing yet, they were just trying
to sell more copies of this useful and popular book.
The thing is, Alessio doesn't seem to have been a
(23:44):
real person. The prevailing theory for a long time was
that this writer and early science dude Rasquelli had used
Alessio as a pen name and written this book. But
that's based on his own claim after Secrets was already
popular and he was trying to sell his own recipe
slash remedy books, so no one really knows. At any rate.
(24:07):
Various types of aroeumatized wine, including versions with wormwood, were
being made in Piedmont and beyond at this time, and
I'm pretty sure that there are recipes for it in
this book. At some point, yep, Remouth did not have
its name yet at this point though, the product was
(24:30):
just called wormwood wine in like whatever language was being used,
but back to Savoy. So in the fifteen fifties when
this book was published, the capital of Savoy was Shambairi
on what is modernly the French side of the Alps,
and the ruler was technically a duke under the Holy
Roman Empire. That's just a note. I just I looked
(24:53):
it up because I was so confused about this whole
Kingdom of Savoy thing. And then it was talking about
the ruler being a duke. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yes, yes, needed to share. Wow, thank you. To better
stave off the threat of French invasion, the Duke of
Savoy relocated the capital to the Piedmont region in fifteen.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Sixty three, specifically to a city called Tarno, which you
may know as Turin and in English.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yes, and they ended up pretty much adopting this style
of aromatized wine in the royal court.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Meanwhile, wormwood was also known in Germanic states further north
as a medicinal herb and a bittering agent and like
a brewer's helper before hops were popular, and as a
flavoring for wine. This was possibly influenced by aromatic wines
from Piedmont. Many question marks. Couldn't get to the bottom
(25:49):
of that. At any rate. The Germanic word for wormwood
was remote, so the product was called remote wine.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
There, yes, and eventually the vermouthvine found its way to
France's aristocracy, where some pronounced it Barmouth.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Back in to Reno, it really maintained that these these
wormwood wines really maintained their popularity with the Royal Court
of Savoy.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
They even gave it an official title in seventeen sixty eight,
a perretivo de courte Love it, Yes, I love it too.
The demand for this product led to the proliferation of
shops in Torino offering concentrates of wormwood that vendors or consumers.
(26:37):
I couldn't get really to the bottom of this because
it sounded like it was a specific thing to the shops.
But then it also sounded like they sold the concentrate. Okay,
so people could make it, but yeah, you would add
it to the wine as a producer or a consumer
to make this yourself. One of these shops started offering
the first commercial brand of Vermouth in seventeen eighty six,
(27:00):
formulated by Antonio Bendetto Carpano. He used Moscato grapes to
make a higher quality wine than was typical for these
earlier vermuse and tapped local monks for ingredients. And he
called his product Remote.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And yes, that carpano. If you are familiar with vermouths,
that is one of the big brands to this day.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yes, and it did not take long for his Remote
to gain some noteworthy fans, including the Duke of Savoy
at the time, who established it as the court's preferred wine.
Since more folks spoke French than German in this region,
people started widely calling it vermuth.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
All of this popularity bred imitators or enthusiasts I guess
around Tourno and back in Chambeiri and down along the
coast of the Mediterranean, stretching mostly westward towards Spain.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yes, in the eighteen hundreds, at herbalist in Lyon, France,
Joseph Noilly something like that decided that the almost salty
flavor created in the process of shipping wine and barrels
was pretty desirable actually, and something that he wanted to replicate.
He moved to Marseilles in eighteen thirteen, very confident that
(28:18):
he could find a market for it. He added flavors
like wormwood to his wine, along with things like bitter
orange and camomeal. He called his product Noiley Prats, which
also yes that one. I'm sorry if I was pronouncing it,
but if you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Know, you know that one.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, yep, yep. A bunch of other companies followed suit
with their own products, but for the next several decades
to Reno remained the top producer.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, long standing brands like Martini and Rossi started up
during this time. It's like, it is hard to overstate
how popular this sweet red vermooth was here and also
Trino was was simultaneously developing like a serious cafe culture.
And those shops would sometimes make their own house of remouth,
which to this day you can still go to there
(29:10):
and get.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yes. And they grew really protective over the product too.
In this region. The Duke of Savoyd decreed that the
wine could not be sold outside of the Piedmont region
in eighteen forty.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah. So yeah, so this is where we get the
beginnings of that dichotomy of like dry white French styles
versus sweet red Terriino styles later returned to Italian styles
after Torino became part of the Kingdom Italy a couple
decades later. But yeah, outside of those two dominant styles,
other styles of Remouth were being developed. For example, the
(29:49):
sweet White style came out of Chambeiri, thanks largely to
the innovations and popularity of the Dolin brand, which set
up shop there around eighteen thirty. Spanish products of Vermouth
seems to have gotten started a little bit later towards
the turn of the century, but certainly like Vermouth had
already been a popular product in Raised Spain, which was
(30:09):
a major hub of wine trade during the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Vermouth was also present at the eighteen fifty three World's
Fair in New York City, and around this time mixed
cocktails really started taking off around the globe, and several
of them incorporated removeth.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, there were also a few waves of Italian immigration
around this time, which brought Remove to places like the
United States and Argentina and further World's Fairs in eighteen
fifty six and eighteen sixty seven, like cemented the international
presence of Vermouth and included some really beautiful illustration posters.
(30:48):
Like Like illustrated posters that were gorgeous look them up.
Look them up. Yes, skipping ahead a little bit, World
War two really mucked up the existence of remouth in
the US for a while, starting with a halt on
imports for perhaps obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right, there was also post World War II racism against
Italians and the low quality of many domestic replacements.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And you would think that remouth would have come back
with the martini boom of like the nineteen fifties, But
this was the era of the clean tasting vodka martini.
Noiley Pratt, I hope that we're saying that right, began
selling this like less flavorful, extra dry remoth here for
those martinis.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Kind Of interestingly too, people in the US at least
didn't like the whole medicinal vibe of remouth which had
been so popular, made it so popular for a while.
But that being said, for some communities, like Italian immigrants
in the US, their love never waned.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Oh yeah, And there are other places like Argentina where
it's popularity mostly increased. Local pt of remots there started
in the nineteen twenties or thirties. Also, there was a
wave of popularity for like simple slash kind of retro
vermouth sippers in the United States and the UK around
the nineteen seventies, kind of along with the rise of
like fresh Mediterranean style cuisine and sort of this like
(32:17):
aspirational Mediterranean vacation concept. Yeah, there are some amazing commercials
out of the UK television ads that mostly involved Joan
Collins getting remooths spilled on her accidentally.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Sorry, wasn't expecting that.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Full of surprises today.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
The remooth episode ghost plays who okay?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
As trends tend to go, though, towards the end of
the nineteen hundreds, Vermouth came to be considered like a
little bit old fashioned in communities that didn't have like
strong traditions towards it, especially during that heck in dark
Age of the cocktail around the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
The Dark Age of the Cocktail.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But starting around the turn of the twenty first century,
a number of wineries and distilleries outside of the traditional
areas started producing their own remouths, including the US and
the UK, Australia and Germany, and new makers started really
playing with like riffs on the concept, like what wines
go into it, what you add to those? Perhaps in
(33:32):
response to this, in twenty nineteen, the European Union gave
a Vermouth di Torino a protected geographical indication. These vermouths
must be made in Piedmont using Italian wormwood and wine.
There's also a Spieriore designation that focuses on Piedmont produced
wines and herbs, and in twenty twenty three, after a
(33:56):
three year campaign, that term of vermouth di torino also
gained legal protection in the United States. So sometimes there,
sorry about my yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and sorry about
my pronunciation being all over the place in this episode
that's it's been a long.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Day, Yeah, blanket apologies, like kind of as always like meal,
And I will say Vermouth anecdotally has certainly been part
of the craft cocktail movement in the US. I have
seen a lot more interest in it, partly from you, Lauren,
(34:34):
in the past decade or so.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, yeah, like the whole craft beverage movement more broadly. Yeah,
it's been featured on a lot of non European menus
by itself outside of cocktails, and there has been like
a Distiller led push for education and for clarity and
labeling as part of marketing efforts not to diminish the
cocktail part.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Though.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, it's also seen extra interest in the recent and
of low alcohol cocktails since what was that like twenty
eighteen ish, maybe, as it has about half the alcohol
content of liquors and therefore it can make for lighter cocktails.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah yeah, I think Remoose's future is bright. Oh yeah,
it does feel like a it's a very potion esque vibe.
Oh yeah. The Tomorrow episode was front of mine for
me when I was doing this research.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah. That was a fun one. If you haven't heard it, oh.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, yeah, and great great interview with the excellent humans
at the Eta Rhine Distillery in Asheville, who then right
gave us that beautiful tale about how they got their
name that we use story Yeah yeah, ghost story that
we did in a Halloween episode.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, oh yes. But also I do mind it fascinating
as people who this is our job and we get
invited to stuff sometimes or sometimes we just go to
stuff whether we were invited or not.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Famous party crashers the Savor days.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yes, I've been to several events where it'll be like,
what you get wrong about sherry, and it'll they'll go
through the history of sherry and they'll have tastings and
pairings and all this stuff. So that business part of
it to me is very fascinating. Yeah, and I feel
like Vermouth is going through that or has just been
(36:37):
through that where it's like, no, you can just drink it.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You can drink it, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, or you can put into cocktail, or you can
have a like lower alcohol content. Like yeah, it's just
really interesting to me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Oh yeah, oh heck yeah, and especially right, like, it's
so fascinating that all of these brands have one hundreds
of years of history and are still going. And some
of them have like specifically brought back classic recipes like
my favorite sort of go to sweet red Italian formouth
(37:14):
is one by Carpano that released this Antica Formula, which
is based on some of Carpano's original notes for making remouth,
and it's kind of like their throwback and it's so good.
Oh my goodness, it makes a delicious Manhattan.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Okay, good note, good note. Yeah, it's so cool to
the history of it, but also fascinating to see the
kind of remember this though.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah. Yeah. I also I know nothing about Italian history
other than what Shakespeare wrote, who I'm pretty sure also
didn't know anything about Italian history, so that's always fun
in these episodes.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Well, listeners, you can always write in we love hearing
from this. But I think that's what we have to
say about Remove for now.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It is. We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with listeners. It's very magical,
(38:44):
thank you, Annie.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Removeth is magical, it is, it is, so are these
listener mails. I have to say. We continue to get
messages about Mountain Dew, which is great, but now we're
getting a lot about thousand Islands. Oh, Place's aces beautiful
coming so good, but okay, Jacob wrote, I'd completely forgotten
(39:11):
about the Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning until you mentioned it.
Considering it was a KFC exclusive, a honey peach flavor
and the down home vibe of old mountain dew and KFC,
it's pretty clear that it was trying to be a
cross between sweet Tea and white Lightning another name for moonshine.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I can't believe I didn't put this together me either,
that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
When I read this, I was like, I need to
go sit in a corner or something that What.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Did I not realize? It's beautiful. I adore this. I
adore everything about this. What a what a beautiful further
marketing of this increasingly elusive moonshine connection.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yes, that's so great. I love how there's still like moonshine,
but moonshine. Yeah, remember these were our roots. You can't
have moonshine, but we'll hint at it. Yep, it's great.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
It's great for a soda. Oh, Alicia, Alicia, I'm not sure.
Sorry about just words. I'm sorry about words today. Okay,
here we are. Uh, they wrote It's been a while
since I've written in, but I listened to the episode
one Thousand Island Dressing and had to write in. I
was born and raised in the Thousand Islands, and I
(40:38):
can tell you that the story about the dressing is baffling.
There are just so many opinions about the origin and
in the area. People are so passionate about it. I've
heard more arguments than I would like to admit. I'm
sorry to inform you, but George Bolt never actually lived
in Bolt Castle. The project on Heart Island was abandoned.
I've visited many times and my dad actually worked maintenance
(41:01):
crew there. They're trying to complete it now. I would
recommend doing the self tour there, the two Nation tour
on Uncle Sam boat Tours, and going to Chipewa Bay
to visit Singer Castle as well. The story about the
Thousand Islands in is what most of us go by.
In a way, what many of us claim is that
it was created on a fishing boat in the middle
of the river. The location is very much disputed, as
(41:24):
people claim the boat was in Clayton and Alexandria Bay.
The Thousand Islands Inn has a big claim for it,
though unfortunately I don't believe this location is open at
this time due to local politics. In this episode, I
found myself yelling out facts before y'all said them. Great
job on the island count it's a common tourist question,
and yes, an island is very specifically a land mass
(41:47):
exposed year round with one tree. Such a crazy fact.
I spent most of my life working at state parks
in the area, so I needed to learn a lot
of information about it. As always, y'all did a wonderful
job with this episode. It was exciting to hear about
my hometown. Oh yay, Yes, that's so good. I'm glad
a whole heck, that's like way off honestly, yes, And
(42:12):
thank you so much for writing in because the experience
of someone that lives in the places we're just you know,
it's so valuable and so great. Yeah, yeah, really really affirming.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
But also I just love this. I love oh yeah,
people are passionate about it, they fight about it.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I love that there's a specific story details, vague but specific,
invented on a fishing boat.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
No, it's no, that's that's a good way of you know,
like like it. Well, it wasn't invented here or here.
It was in the middle of the river.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Can we all agree it was the middle of the river.
Is that okay with everybody?
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Also, good tour recommendations. Thank you. It looks it looks
so beautiful, Like I I really I really want to
go to there.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I do as well, and I would love to hear
these facts and passionate opinions. And also, yes, thank you
for confirming because I know we mentioned in the episode
we weren't sure. Yeah, George Bolt had ever gone lived there? Yeah, yes,
I can't believe. I mean it can, but wow, they're
(43:23):
still working on it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
That's that is all. It is very very wild. But yes,
we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thanks to both
of these listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to as you can, Our email is Hello
at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts on my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always, Toy superproducer, Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
of more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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