1911 Beverages de luxe

BY CESARE CONTI

Jtalian

Président Italo-American Stores New York

Vermouth

Italian V erinouth is nndoubtedly the best known and most largely consumed vinous liquor used in the préparation of niixed drinks. With this liqnor is so identified the city of Turin, where it is chiefly prepared, that its name has be- come familiar as the home of Vermouth par excel-

lence. Vermouth is, practically, a good white wine, chiefly Muscat, aromatized with the addition of the extract from certain aro- matic herbs, fortified with pure wine spirits to a strength vary- ing from fifteen to seveDteen per cent, by volume, sweetened with pure sugar, so as to brin g its saccharimetric contents at from twelve to eighteen per cent. It dérives its name, of Teutonic origin, from the word "Wermut," which stands in the German language for the Eng- lish "wormwood," one of the aromatic herbs which is more or less conspicuous in ail the formulas for its préparation. There are many other herbs and spices entering into the composition of the extract added to wine in the préparation of Vermouth, which vary according to formula. Of thèse, there are as many, we might say, as leaves in Vallombrosa, each maker having his own particular formula, which is naturally guarded as a trade secret. Although wormwood figures in ail formulas, it must be noted that the parts of the plant used are not the leaves, nor the stems, which contain the essential oil of wormwood or absinthol, but the flowers, or better, the inflorescences which contain, in- stead of the essential oil, an entirely unobjectionable aromatic principle, known as absinthine, recognized by the pharmacopœa as a useful tonic. The custom of infusing aromatic ingrédients into wine, in order to enhance its hygienic value, dates from the remotest times. Mention is made of such wines by Pliny, and Cicero alludes to an "ahsinthiatum vinum" wiiich must have been something on the lines of Vermouth, but, of course, not so improved and harmonious in its composition as the article of the présent day. Vermouth wine is a liquor of a rather deep golden color, of