Finish the bottle
Vermouth cocktails
The one bottle on your shelf with a clock running on it. Vermouth is wine, so it starts dying the moment you open it — and most of it is thrown away rather than drunk.
8
Recipes here
1
Guides to go with them
It is wine, and that changes everything
Vermouth is aromatised, fortified wine — wine, strengthened a little and flavoured with botanicals. The fortification takes it to around 15 to 18%, which is nowhere near enough to make it shelf-stable. Once air gets in, it oxidises exactly like a bottle of white you left open.
Which means it belongs in the fridge, not next to the gin, and it is best measured in weeks rather than months. A bottle that has been open on a warm shelf since Christmas is not seasoning your Martini, it is flattening it. If it smells sherried, dull or vaguely of stewed apples, it has gone — and no amount of good gin will rescue the drink.
How to actually get through one
Buy smaller bottles, keep them cold, and drink vermouth as a drink rather than only as an ingredient — chilled, over ice, with a twist, it is genuinely good and it is how most of Europe treats it.
And when you have a half-full bottle and a fortnight to use it, this is the list. Everything below is built on vermouth rather than merely tolerating it.
Pour one
8 to make with vermouth
Classic · 1919El Presidente
Classic · 1937La Louisiane
Classic · 1874Manhattan
Classic · 1884Martinez
Classic · 1884Martini
Tropical · 1933Queen's Park Hotel Super Cocktail
Classic · 1920Scofflaw
Classic · 1938Vieux Carré
Asked and answered
Questions, answered
- How long does vermouth last once opened?
- Weeks, not months, and only if you refrigerate it. Somewhere around a month for sweet and rather less for dry is a sensible working rule. It will not hurt you after that — it will just taste tired, and it will make everything you put it in taste tired too.
- Does vermouth need to be refrigerated?
- Yes. It is fortified wine, not spirit, so there is not enough alcohol to protect it. An opened bottle kept at room temperature is noticeably worse within a fortnight.
- What can I do with leftover vermouth?
- Drink it cold with a twist, or make one of the drinks on this page. Dry vermouth is also genuinely useful in cooking, anywhere a recipe asks for white wine — which is the most reliable way to finish a bottle that is on its last legs.
The bartender’s note
One drink, one story, one bottle worth buying.
Thursday evening, so you have time to shop. No more than that.