What is vermuterium and why is it fashionable

The famous bartender Salvatore Calabrese mixed cocktails to Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro and dozens of Hollywood stars. Searching around the world for precious liquors, spirits and aromatic infusions, he especially distinguishes vermouth from this whole palette. According to Calabrese, they are now experiencing a real renaissance and are returning thanks to modern master blenders that rediscover the palette of their tastes.

Calabrese says: “Italians love to drink vermouth with ice. This is an ideal aperitif, it is not strong, fresh and with a rich bouquet in which you can distinguish the bitterness and the nature of wormwood, the sweetness of berries, the aromas of cloves and cinnamon. These notes can not be counted, because you can add anything to Vermouth. This is real painting! ”

Sherry Cardamom Cocktail

Ode to Vermouths the famous Bartender sings in the Moscow bar “Vermuteria”, where he came to give a master class. The bar became the pioneer of a new trend for vermouths in Russia, combining an elegant reference to the European culture of daily wine drinking with a virtuoso approach to Moscow gastronomy. The famous Italian concept chef Carlo Grecu is responsible for the food here, who also does not hide his love for Vermouth: “As a teenager (and the law in Italy allows minors to buy alcoholic drinks) we often walked around with the company and bought our girls not whiskey or wine, but tasty vermouth . They loved his sweetness. Therefore, the menu “Vermuteri” for me is both nostalgia and a step into the future. We cook here excellent pizza with fantasy fillings, pasta, risotto. We even do one of them with vermouth! ”

The chief barman of Vermuteri, Andrei Kornilov, is Russia's main specialist in vermouths. Even in antiquity, the inhabitants of Ancient Rome loved to aromatize wines with mountain herbs, he says. They became the ancestors of the Vermouth. Already in the XVIII century, wormwood began to be used as the main flavoring. Its German name, vermouth, and gave the name of the drink.

The chief bartender of Vermuteri Andrey Kornilov

“Vermouths can be drunk in the morning, afternoon and evening, before and after meals,” Kornilov explains the popularity of Vermouths. - There are dry vermouths, there are sweet ones, there are strongly spicy vermouths. This is the most interesting drink now. We already know a lot about whiskey, rum, vodka, gin, but almost no one knows anything about vermouth. Therefore, we have a lot of curious guests who want to know everything and try everything. ”

Kornilov not only gathered in the bar a large collection of famous vermouths from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, but also made his own. For example, spicy vermouth on lemongrass and cardamom with light citrus notes, apple ginger on sour green and sweet red apples, sweet digestive vermouth on hazelnuts and almonds, lush grassy vermouth with the aroma of fennel and caraway seeds, which is perfect for gin cocktails. Speaking of cocktails. If usually mixes with vermouth emphasize the taste of strong alcohol, then with Kornilov the opposite is true. And the cocktails became lighter, more nutritious and very understandable.

Green Life Cocktail

European vermeteri are usually quite democratic. People go here to drink a glass during an aperitif, run to chat with friends, meet friends in the evening. This is not a ceremonial, obliging to a straight back and reference manners restaurant, but a friendly place for everyday life. The Moscow “Vermuteri” has a funny, bright interior, huge windows, closely located tables, so you can easily enter into a conversation with your neighbors. “Last Friday I saw a perfect picture here,” the owner of the bar, Vasilisa Volkova, glows with pleasure. - A family was sitting in one corner, in the center there was a large table of fashionable PR people who work nearby, a foreigner - he liked some kind of blonde, nearby - some kind of date. Different speech, different conversations, hum is real happiness. ” To have more happiness, and the guests did not wait for the opportunity to take a table,

Bar "Vermuteria" in Moscow

Volkova admits that, starting a bar-vermuteria, they argued that it would be more popular: wine or vermouth. The latter have won. Both girls and young people readily drink them. The first, by the way, are more likely to choose spicy and dry vermouth, of the five only one orders a sweet vermouth. Without exception, Kornilov offers one or two, or even more vermouths, just to try and appreciate the multifaceted taste, which has a great future.