Cocktails with Ambrato vermouth
Ambrato vermouth is an amber-colored aromatized fortified wine, sitting in weight between dry white and sweet red.
ABV16%
Substitutes for Ambrato vermouth
Another ambrato works one for one, such as Martini Riserva Speciale Ambrato (18%) or Mancino Bianco Ambrato (16%). Without one, a bianco vermouth comes closest, since ambratos are sweet too: Mancino's has 170 g of sugar per liter, Padró's Dorado about 160 g.
Bianco vermouth
Pale and sweet, much like ambrato, at about 130–170 g of sugar per liter. Swap it one for one; the drink comes out paler and a little less bitter, and a dash of orange bitters restores some edge.
Dry vermouth
Pale and much drier, at 20–30 g of sugar per liter. With it the drink comes out leaner, so add about ⅓ barspoon of 2:1 syrup for every 10 ml.
On the label
- “vermouth”
- A legal category, not a style word. At least 75% of the bottle must be wine, it has to be flavored with at least one Artemisia — wormwood — herb, and it must sit between 14.5% and 22% ABV. Drop the wormwood and it is an aromatized wine, not a vermouth.
Storage
It is wine with spirit added, so it oxidizes like wine: fridge once opened, and use it inside a month. A bottle standing warm on a back bar is flat within a fortnight, and the honeyed note goes before the bitterness does.
