It’s 400 BC in Ancient Greece. Hippocrates walks out of his marble-constructed physician's office with a mysterious bottle in hand. He pops off the top and the aromas fill him with a sense of calm.
The bottle in his hand, full of healing properties, has served him well today. He prescribed it to a few patients with rheumatism, and one with jaundice.Â
It was a long, fulfilling day. The moment calls for a drink. Hippocrates grabs his favorite chalice, fills it with his magic cure-all potion, and garnishes it with a slice of orange, and an olive.
The True Origins
Okay, so that story about Hippocrates might be a bit fabricated, but there are some truths weaved into it. Hippocrates is indeed credited with inventing a vermouth-like substance that served moments of healing and pleasure.Â
The wise man macerated wormwood and dittany flowers with local wine and additional spices and sweeteners. The result was a sweet digestif that he coined as Hippocratic Wine. He’d go on to prescribe a whole bunch of it—treating anything from period pains to arthritis.
Like many historical creations, controversies surrounding the genesis of vermouth are present. The reality is that, more often than not, similar ideas have been explored in different parts of the globe during differing periods.Â
There are traces of vermouth-adjacent drinks dating back 8,000 years ago in Ancient China where wine was spiced with rice malt, honey, and fruit. India also had its own version that reached great popularity as a medicinal elixir.Â
When the Romans began accessing exotic spices via their newfound trade routes, they created a wine-based tonic with wormwood, cinnamon, and honey. This grew in popularity amongst hedonists because they were enjoyed like an amaro after a meal to help with post-feast digestion.
But were any of these actually vermouth?
Vermouth is a fortified and aromatized wine. This requires infusing the wine base with aromatic plants and combining it with a neutral liquor to bring up the alcohol and help with preservation.
It wasn’t until after 1000 AD that distillation gained a presence in Europe, meaning that before this, these elixirs were really just aromatized wines—lacking the fortification of vermouth.
Pseudonyms and Cinnamon
Prying itself out of the Middle Ages into the 1500s, the Duchy of Savoy—mostly modern-day Northern Italy and Southern France—had developed a taste for what appears to be the first trace of what we consider the vermouth of today.
So was it France or was it Italy that invented vermouth? Well, it’s kind of both under the banner of Savoy. Let’s all shake hands and move on, shall we?
Savoy had an abundance of grapes but records show they didn’t produce great wines. With access to the Mediterranean, exotic ingredients and spices began to flood in, and creatives had an opportunity to experiment with the likes of clove, cinnamon, ginger, and rhubarb.
In 1555 the beverage world forever changed with the publication of De' secreti del reuerendo donno Alessio Piemontese by Alessio Piemontese. This home remedy and recipe book spread all over Europe for the next few decades and continued being printed until the 1790s. If you could read at the time, you probably came across this book—and yes, there were vermouth recipes in it.
The strange thing is that Alessio Piemontese doesn’t seem to have been a real person. The prevailing theory is that this was a pseudonym for Girolamo Ruscelli. The only shady part of this theory is that this was entirely based on Ruscelli’s own claim and it came after the book already achieved massive success. So until someone decides to make a thrilling adaptation of the mysterious events starring Nicholas Cage, you’ll have to leave it to your imagination.Â
Either way, this book led to a new world of fortified wines.
A Drink for a Duke
After a couple of decades of hostility, the Duke of Savoy realized that he could no longer trust the French, and moved the capital from Chambéry to Torino. The good news was that folks were pumping out vermouth in Torino, and the Duke was a big fan. He adopted it as the official wine of the royal court.
At this time, vermouth still didn’t have its name. It was simply referred to as wormwood wine in whichever language was being used.
The spread of fortified and aromatized wines didn’t stop in Savoy. Wormwood had become popular in Northern Germanic states as a medicinal herb, bittering agent, and brewing ingredient before hops gained popularity—and yes, as a flavoring for wine.
The Germanic word for wormwood was wermut. Thus the product was called wermutwein.
Eventually wermutwein found its way to the French aristocracy, and they tweaked the pronunciation in an ever-Frenchy style and began to call it vermouth.
Back in Torino, vermouth was blowing up. Wormwood concentrates were being produced as an easy hack to aromatize wine. This was when the first industrious individual decided to start the first commercial brand of vermouth in 1786. The gentleman behind the brand was a man named Antonio Benedetto Carpano—yes, that Carpano.
Carpano took the popular drink and made it bougie. He used higher-quality Moscato grapes and tapped into local monks for his botanicals and herbs.
As Carpano gained traction, so did imitators—local and abroad.
In the early 1800s an herbalist in Lyon, France named Joseph Noilly decided that the almost salty, oxidized flavors created in the process of shipping wine in barrels were pretty desirable. He moved to Marseille in 1813 and was confident he could find a market. He added wormwood and bitter orange and chamomile and called it Noily Prat—yes, that Noilly Prat.
Torino remained the hub of vermouth which was exacerbated by the city’s burgeoning cafe culture. Yet the new Duke of Savoy grew protective, and in 1840 wouldn’t allow his beloved vermouth to be exported out of Torino.
Vermouth or Vermut?
Vermouth made its way into Spain by way of Barcelona in the early 19th century. Reus, a small Catalan city, not far from Barcelona, had already been established as a major global producer of liquor, competing with the likes of London and Paris. Needless to say, the arrival of vermouth couldn’t have come at a better time.
The Catalan producers tweaked the name from vermouth to vermut, perhaps unintentionally bringing it closer to its original pronunciation. Within a short period, there were over 30 vermut producers in Reus and it became one of the top vermouth-producing regions in the world thanks to the rise of globalization and the beginnings of cocktail culture.
Not all of this Catalan liquid was exported, however. Vermut Rofes, a primary producer in Reus, was churning out so much vermut that they connected their cellar to the local train station and spread their vermut all over Spain, where popularity rapidly grew.
Vermut culture was born.
La Hora del Vermut
Vermouth culture has remained strong in many of the regions where production began—Torino, Southern France, and Catalunya. It also spread with immigration. As Italian immigrants flocked to Argentina and the United States, they brought vermouth with them as well. Yet there is nowhere that vermouth culture exploded as much as it did throughout Spain.
La hora del vermut is a ritual with few rules. Traditionally, it’s an aperitif to be enjoyed with snacks before lunch. But your vermouth hour can be whenever you see fit. In nearly every Spanish city it’s common to see friends enjoying a bottle of vermut for their hora or vermuteo on terraces with the post-work aperitivo crowd. Like the Romans, some people still enjoy a vermut after a meal for its digestive properties.
Vermut is a drink for the people. It quietly gained popularity during the Franco years because it could be easily stored and didn’t require the use of high-quality wine, making it relatively inexpensive during an era of economic instability. It’s simple, it’s inviting, and it’s not meant to be fussy. Pour it on ice with an orange slice and olive. Maybe add a splash of soda water, perhaps a dash of gin. Â
Enjoy it. Have another.Â
From Medicine to Pleasure
Doctors don’t prescribe vermouth anymore. Maybe they should. Yet the amount of inventive individuals who have dedicated their time, ingenuity, and livelihood to the evolution of this drink is a fascinating accordion of stories and legends.
Vermut-drinking culture in Spain quietly gained popularity during Franco’s dictatorship because it could be easily stored and didn’t require high-quality wine, making it relatively inexpensive during a time of economic instability. After the Franco-era, vermut slowly became something that was enjoyed by old-timers who made it through that era, fueled on fortified wine. Vermut culture almost went extinct heading into the new millennium—that is until young people became interested.
Today we are experiencing a rebirth of vermut culture and one that is breathing new life into a historically rich category. Will it return as the official wine of political institutions? Probably not. But will it continue to bring people joy in the old-school tabernas of Madrid when pouring on tap? Will it get crowds of young Barcelona hipsters, bumping elbows with sun-dried old-timers excited? Will the new adopters in New York City, Tokyo, and Amsterdam find a new thing to embrace? The history of vermouth can teach us much about the past.
Vermut is here to stay.