Smeaton's and Scarpa: bitter sweet moments
The perfect negronis and martinis being poured today till 6:30pm
Vermouths are one of the unsung heroes of the drinks world, from their quasi-medical origins, through to prohibition when homemade flavoured wine took the edge off bathtub gin. After that it was a combination of royal patronage and female consumers who drove the category; peak vermouth was in the seventies when Joan Collins and Leonard Rossiter spent many a happy commercial break chucking the stuff at each other. And sophisticates drank it with lemonade. Nomenclature has changed since then. Gin and French meant a good slug of dry vermouth, Gin and IT(alian) meant sweet. But all vermouth should have a bitter component and a complex set of flavours from all the herbs and flowers used in production. Additionally many are slightly oxidised – think Madeira – for extra interest. Scarpa is a small and high quality producer in Piemonte using only native grapes and locally sourced herbs and flavours to make their amazing vermouths. *NEW and exclusive* is the Scarpa Extra Dry, unfiltered and natural.
Vermouth without gin these days is a rare thing, and we’ve yet again rediscovered the magic of cocktails. So today Michael Palij MW will be blending and creating using his rather fabulous Smeaton's Gin. Smeaton's takes its name from the eponymous wharf in trendy Bristol where the recipe was unearthed. It then took Michael over nine years to run the development, following the strict distilling schedule of the individual botanicals as they arrive fresh into the port and capturing their individual essence at its freshest. It is incredibly aromatic, natural and intense. According to Hamish Anderson in the Telegraph last weekend 'I taste a lot of new gins and none came close to this in 2019'. /CW
