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See why.The Best Dry Vermouth
Could we find a bottle that would do double duty for cooking and cocktails?
By Published Nov. 1, 2017
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What You Need To Know
Our recipes often call for dry white wine. Its crisp acidity and lightly fruity flavor add depth to everything from pan sauces and pasta to risotto and steamed mussels. The problem? Standard wine bottles are 750 milliliters, and our recipes rarely call for more than 1 cup (roughly 235 milliliters) of wine. That leaves us with most of a bottle to finish in a matter of days. Dry vermouth, which can be substituted for white wine in equal amounts in recipes, is a convenient alternative. Like Marsala and sherry, vermouth is wine that’s been fortified with a high-proof alcohol (often brandy), which raises its alcohol content and allows to it be stored in the refrigerator for weeks or even months after opening. Although vermouth fell out of favor with Americans during the Mad Men era of bone-dry martinis, its availability and popularity are on the rise. Small manufacturers have popped up in San Francisco and Brooklyn, and bars are responding by featuring vermouth in cocktails. In the past few years, products from European manufacturers such as Noilly Prat and Dolin—which had previously been hard to find in the United States—have become widely available.
Now that we have more options, which bottle should we be buying? We found eight dry vermouths, priced from $6.99 to $24.99 for 750-milliliter or 1-liter bottles, that are available nationally. Our lineup included vermouths produced in Italy, France, and California, with 15 to 18 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). We first sampled them plain, served chilled. Then, to see how they fared in a cooked application, we used them in place of white wine in simple Parmesan risotto.
First, a little demystifying. In addition to being fortified, dry vermouth is infused with botanicals. That exotic-sounding term is a catchall for any ingredient sourced from a plant, including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, herbs, and spices. Those botanicals can be added in a variety of ways: to the base wine, to the high-alcohol spirit, after the alcohol is added to the wine, or at multiple steps in the process. Vermouth is sometimes aged in barrels, which is intended to impart an oaky, vanilla-y quality and can allow harsh flavors or sharp tannins to mellow. But none of that is required. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which supervises alcohol production in the United States, simply stipulates that vermouth must be made from grape wine with alcohol added and have the “taste, aroma, and characteristics generally attributed to vermouth.”
When we evaluated the dry vermouths, they fell into two broad groups. Some were intensely flavored, with lots of warm spice and “funky,” almost “medicinal” hits of “...
Everything We Tested
Recommended
Tasters loved this versatile French dry vermouth. When tasted plain, it was “crisp” and had notes of fresh fruit, citrus, and mint. It contributed a “distinctive” but measured herbal flavor to risotto. If you’d like to cook with dry vermouth and occasionally drink it plain or in cocktails, buy this bottle.
Our Best Buy was “sweeter” and had “less fragrant botanicals” than our winner but was still “crisp and fruity” enough for our panel. It earned top marks in risotto, where its “bright,” “clean” flavor brought out the savoriness of the chicken broth and Parmesan cheese and didn’t taste overly sweet. Best of all, it’s less expensive than the dry white wines many of us usually buy for cooking.
This option from Noilly Prat, which returned to the U.S. market in 2013 after a brief hiatus, was “smooth,” and tasters described it as both “light” and “refreshing” when sampling it plain. That mild flavor resulted in a risotto that was “minimally winey” and “more generic” but still flavorful. We liked that it brought out the savory elements of the risotto.
This Noilly Prat dry vermouth is noticeably sweeter than its sister product, bordering on “syrupy,” “like a soda that’s gone flat.” It’s also quite “floral.” Although a handful of tasters thought that the wine flavor was “a bit strong” in risotto, most found it acceptable.
This ubiquitous dry vermouth contained a range of flavors when sampled plain. Our panels detected everything from “lemony,” “almost tropical” flavors to “lavender” and “potpourri”-like notes. But when we used it to prepare risotto, those assertive flavors mellowed to something more “flat” and “mild.”
Made in California, this dry vermouth tasted strongly of herbs such as rosemary and thyme and was “spicy” like black pepper, ginger, and anise. Those “complex” and “aromatic” flavors persisted in risotto. Tasters who preferred a more mild risotto deemed the herbal quality “a bit too prominent,” but other panelists enjoyed the assertive flavors.
Recommended with reservations
“The flavor was strong but enjoyable,” wrote one taster. Others thought this product’s “darker,” “moodier,” and “more robust” herb flavors were out of place in risotto. Even when sampled plain, it was “funky” and “piney” and had a gentle cooling sensation that we associate with menthol and mint.
Another herb-packed dry vermouth, this Italian product tasted “earthy,” “woodsy,” and like “mint” when sampled plain. When we used it in risotto, warm spices came to the forefront. We detected notes of coriander, clove, nutmeg, and cardamom. It landed somewhere between pleasantly “intense” and “overpowering.”
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The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.
Kate Shannon
Kate is a deputy editor for ATK Reviews. She's a culinary school graduate and former line cook and cheesemonger.
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