Barrel-Aged Negroni, Manhattan Cocktails

Irene got me a couple oak barrels so we're barrel-aging some of our favorite cocktails: the Negroni and Manhattan. The hardest part is waiting! Newer wood and smaller barrels impart more flavor, older and larger take longer. We'll try them after 2 weeks. Both use our home made vermouth.

The Negroni's a bitter and bracing concoction, not sweet and sharp enough to have another and another. It's easy to make, even when drunk, since the proportions are 1:1:1.

We used the 1L cask, so:

• 325 ml Vermouth (use a tasty one, not an insipid one)
• 325 ml Campari
• 325 ml Gin (a tasty one, but not so refined you should drink it neat)

Mix and pour into the barrel.

The Manhattan is a classic, but I never cared for them until I used a really flavorful Vermouth. The Makers Mark bourbon is surprisingly inexpensive, more so than the rot gut you should never drink, but not so dear as the comparable Woodford, Basil Haden, etc.  We use some juice from Maraschino-style cherries we made, it rounds it out. For 2 Liters:

• 1350 ml Bourbon
• 450 ml Vermouth (tasty)
• 150 ml Cherry Juice

Vermouth #3 with Garbage Barge Amaro

Our previous Vermouth used 16 different tinctures of herbs macerated in vodka; we strained out and saved the herbs, and put them in more vodka in a batch -- it's extracted plenty of flavor. For this vermouth, I wanted something quick, so instead of the tinctures, I just used this "garbage barge amaro" -- no careful measuring.  It turned out well.

400 g Sugar
120 g Water
1500 ml White Wine (Bota box pinot grigio)
300 ml Garbage Barge Amaro vodka

Make caramel by heating Sugar and Water until it hits 370F/188C; don't stir or anything.
Pour out onto Silpat or other nonstick sheet; a Teflon skillet works.
Allow to cool and set up a bit, but you don't have to wait until it's brittle.

While the caramel is cooking...

Combine Wine and Amaro in a 3 L container.

When the Caramel has set up a bit, or become brittle, roll up or shatter the caramel into the bucket of Wine and Amaro. 

Cover and let dissolve over night.

Makes slightly over 2 Liters of Vermouth. I topped up with a bit more wine to bring it up to fill 3 750 ml bottles, 2250 ml total.

Chill and serve, perhaps over ice, or with a spritz of soda water, or use to make fabulous Manhattans or gin martinis.

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.

Vermouth #1

We drank a lot of vermouth in Spain: all the restaurants were selling it, the wine shops had barrels of local wine and artisanal vermouth, even late-night walk-up dives sold it by the large glass. It was a great way to take a break or start a meal. There were bottles of Spanish vermouth at the grocery store for not much money, and many bars sold locally-produced artisanal vermouths at very reasonable prices. At about 15% alcohol, it's just a bit more than wine-strength, so no big deal -- especially as it was usually served on ice, and sometimes brightened with a bit of sparkling water from a soda siphon.

The recipes I'm seeing have two variations: steep spices and herbs in boiling wine, or make a vodka-based tincture of the aromatics separately then add. Some boost the alcohol with sherry, and the booze in the tinctures will bump it up of course. Most add sugar for body, typically by creating a caramel to provide more depth of flavor. This first one uses the quick, direct boiling method, but you don't want to boil long and drive off the alcohol.

As Wikipedia says: "The name "vermouth" is the French pronunciation of the German word Wermut for wormwood that has been used as an ingredient in the drink over its history." I got the wormwood and other exotic aromatics online, and have used them to make amaros in the past.

To calculate the alcohol: 750ml * 13% + 150ml * 40% = 157ml alcohol in a volume of 900ml, so 157/900 = 17.5% alcohol.

Ingredients

750 ml Pino Grigio wine (Bota Box, 13%)
1 g Wormwood
0.5 g Gentian root
0.5 g Rhubarb root
4 g Bitter Orange peel (dried)
0.5 g Bay Leaf
0.5 g Clove
0.5 g Coriander
0.5 g Juniper berries

200 g Sugar
60 ml Water

150 ml Vodka (40%)

Wine and Botanicals

Crush the herbs and spices in a mortar and pestle.
Add to the wine and bring to a simmer.
Turn off heat, cover, and let steep until cool.
Steep refrigerated overnight.
Strain the wine through a coffee filter to remove herbs.

Caramel 

Add sugar and Water to pot and make a caramel, I went to a rich copper color for flavor.
Pour out onto a non-stick Silpat sheet and allow to cool and set into a glassy texture.

Crack and shatter the caramel glass into vodka.

Heat the Vodka gently to help dissolve the caramel shards; keep the heat below the boiling point of alcohol (80C/176F). I had problems with this so added the flavored wine and vodka/caramel to a jar then set that in a 57C/135F water bath to heat gently until dissolved.

Chill, serve over ice with an orange peel garnish and a meaty olive.

Impressions

Irene thinks the caramel went a bit too far to dark, that a burnt sugar edge comes through. I think it's got a slightly too-bitter edge that may come from wormwood or gentian, and not enough complexity from the other aromatics. But it was pretty easy.