Where does vermouth gets its name from

A.� Vermouth takes its name from the German for its main flavouring compound wormwood (wermut). The Latin name for this plant is artemisia absinthium, meaning vermouth is a second cousin to absinthe, the difference�being that vermouth uses the flowers, while absinthe is made be distilling the leaves.

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Q.� Where did it come from

A.� For thousands of years, people have been flavouring wines and spirits with herbs and roots.It's the basis for many liqueurs. While aromatized fortified wines like Suze, with its flavour of gentian, or Dubonnet and St Raphael, with their high precentage of quinine, have been around for years, vermouth is probably the best known of the breed.

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Q. What types of vermouth are there

A.� There are three broad types: Southern French (typified by Noilly Prat); Savoie (Chambery) and Italian (Martini & Rossi, Cinzano).

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Southern French vermouths (used best to make a Dry Martini) are the most complex, being made from dry white wine that is lightly fortified with brandy and then left outdoors in open casks for two summers and two winters to 'weather'. After this, some casks are fortified to 50 per cent, herbs are added and left to macerate. The remaining casks are flavoured with mistelle (wine prevented from fermenting by fortification). The final product is a blend of the two.

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Savoie vermouths are more delicate, because they are not weathered, and Italian vermouths are made from spirit, infused with herbs, then blended with wine.

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Q.� Where was a Dry Martini first mixed

A.� It first appeared in the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York in 1911, where head barman Martini di Arma di Taggia mixed a cocktail of half-and-half London gin, Noilly Prat vermouth and orange bitters. It was, to all intents and purposes, a gin and French. Martini's twist on the recipe was that he stirred the ingredients with lots of ice and then strained them into a chilled glass. The olive, it is said, was an addition by Knickerbocker regulars.

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Recipe:

3oz gin (the best you can find - Tanqueray, Beefeater, Crown Jewel, Plymouth)

1 tsp Noilly Prat

Lemon twist

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Place vermouth in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain. Add gin. Stir and strain into pre-chilled cocktail glasses. Add lemon twist.

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It is an exceptionally difficult cocktail to mix.�Film director�Luis Bu�uel once described the process of adding vermouth to the gin as like the Immaculate Conception, as all that should happen was that a ray of sunshine should shine through the bottle of Noilly Prat before hitting the gin.

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By Katharine MacColl