Cocktails with Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
Carpano Antica Formula is a branded Italian sweet (rosso) vermouth, an aromatised, fortified wine flavoured with Artemisia and botanicals from a historic Carpano recipe.
ABV16.5%
Taste profile
Vanilla dominates the nose and palate, layered over dried fruit and warm spice, carried on a sweet body with a herbal-bitter Artemisia backbone.
How it's used
Reached for when a drink calls for a sweet, aromatic vermouth with weight, it serves as a low-proof base or co-base measure in stirred builds, or in smaller doses as a modifier or rinse; its vanilla character is most prominent when it is a featured component.
Substitutes for Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
Another rosso (sweet red) vermouth is the closest match, preserving the sweet, Artemisia-flavoured herbal-bitter structure at comparable strength and colour; the specific vanilla-forward, dried-fruit signature is muted in a generic rosso, most noticeably where the vermouth is featured rather than a small modifier. A drier substitute can be topped up with a little simple syrup to make up the sugar, but a plain sweet wine or a dry vermouth cannot stand in.
