Vermouth #2 with Tinctures

We got hooked on Vermouth in Barcelona, a tasty nip served chilled, sometimes with a spritz of seltzer, with an orange peel and frequently an olive. A bit of sweetness balanced by herbaceous bitterness, a mild 15% alcohol, refreshing and perfect for a long afternoon -- and much more interesting than the insipid stuff you find in liquor stores. Many were artisanal, made locally. We had to try it.

We made one a while back but for this one we used a different approach. We made 17 tinctures of various botanicals, some from the garden (bay leaves), with exotic ones ordered online including the critical wormwood ("Wermut", in German) and gentian for bitterness. We soaked these in a clean, affordable vodka (Sobieski here, but I'd be fine with Luksusowa or Frïs) for a month, then strained through a fine mesh sieve and returned to their jars. This allows us to tweak the profile even after mixing a batch, something our previous bulk process did not. See the table below for proportion of botanical and vodka, then the amount of the tincture we added to the wine for the finished vermouth.

I first made a caramel, going for a bit lighter color than last time because Irene said it tasted too burnt (I thought it was fine, playing off the bitterness of the herbs).  Combine 200 g sugar and 67 g water, and bring to boil.

I broke a cardinal rule of pastry chefs and caused crystallization. Fortunately, I wasn't making a sauce, so I kept stirring after the water evaporated and let the chunks melt into a caramel.

The recipe I was starting from suggested a final temperature of about 185C/365F so I watched it with a Thermapen.

When it reached temperature (or go by color, a orangey maple syrup shade) pour it out onto a non-stick sheet like a Silpat and let it set up until hard and glass-like.

Heat 125 ml of wine gently and add the broken up caramel, stir until it dissolves. I tried to keep the temperature below the boiling point of alcohol (78C/173F) so I didn't lose the good stuff. This was achingly slow, so I bumped up the heat, comforted by the fact that the tinctures would add back precious alcohol.

While the wine syrup cooled, I measured out the tinctures with syringes; you could weigh them too with a small scale accurate to 0.5 g or so.

Botanical	g botanical for tincture	ml vodka for tincture	% (g/ml) tincture	ml tincture in vermouth
angelica root	20	200	10	15
bay leaves	10	100	10	15
black cardamom	20	100	20	1
cinnamon	20	100	20	8
clove	20	100	20	0.5
coriander	20	100	20	15
gentian root	20	200	10	2
juniper	20	100	20	15
nutmeg	20	100	20	5
bitter orange peel	40	200	20	15
vanilla	7	100	7	5
wormwood	20	200	10	4
black walnut shell	20	200	10	5
fennel	20	100	20	1
ginger	40	100	40	5
mace	10	100	10	5
rhubarb root	20	200	10	5

I added another 375ml wine and the wine syrup, then declared victory.

This batch has more body, more mouthfeel, and the caramel flavor is more caramel-ly and less burned than our first attempt. It tastes more like the vermouth we indulged in while in Barcelona.

Next time...

The dissolving of the caramel glass into the wine is tedious. Next time I think I'll put all the wine (125 + 375 = 500ml) into a jar, add the caramel shards, and hold in a water bath just below the boiling point until it dissolved of its own accord. Then I'd add the tinctures, to avoid any further loss to the angel's share.

Oh, so what did we do with all the seeds and stems, leaves and twigs, shells and roots from our tinctures? They have intense smells, and I bet a lot of intense flavor left in them. I collected them all in a jar and added enough clean vodka to cover. In a month, it should turn out to be a "garbage barge" amaro -- a bitter digestif. We've made these before, with intentional flavor profiles (e.g., "sweet" spices like for the winter holidays) and liked them. We'll see how this one turns out with all its random flavors.