Carpano Antica Formula – Sweet Vermouth from Heaven!
Nevermind that…
For those of you wanting to duplicate this cocktail
experience at home, what is the starting point, the single most important thing
you must do before you even pour a drop of elixir...?
Use good ingredients!
Just as in cooking, it all starts with what you put in. You have to use top shelf ingredients to get
a top shelf final result. Which brings
us to…This is not some crazy baby food, but rather what may possibly be the best sweet vermouth gracing planet earth.
Are you a Manhattan
drinker? Or perhaps a Negroni
or Americano? Sweet Vermouth is a
highlight of these cocktails, and use of the Carpano Antica Formula is
revelatory. Your taste buds will be
seriously happy campers!
Who do you thank for this adult beverage happiness?
The time was 1786, the location was Turin, Italy. Antonio Beneditto Carpano, studying to be an
herbalist (a title bearing a different connotation these days?), invented the
formula that brought forth all things Vermouth.
One such recipe was the Antica Formula, which has been faithfully
recreated to this day. White wine is the
base, with botanicals including vanilla, saffron, wormwood, burnt sugar, and
numerous other aromatics in the mix. The
refining process can last several months, which includes multiple quality
control stages. They take this stuff
very seriously at the Fratelli
Branca Distillerie, where the vermouth is made. Word has it only three living humans know the
entire recipe!
You can enjoy Carpano Anitca Formula on the rocks with an
orange slice, or in the above mentioned cocktails. Either way, I guarantee this is one fine
palate pleaser!
Cheers…