Cocktails with Punt e Mes
Punt e Mes is a branded Italian sweet (rosso) vermouth from Turin distinguished by a pronounced added quinine bitterness.
ABV16%
Substitutes for Punt e Mes
Sweet vermouth body and quinine bitterness arrive together here, and no single bottle carries both. Rebuild it from a rosso plus a dash or two of a quinine-forward bitters, and accept that the two halves will sit alongside each other rather than integrate.
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.
Often confused with
A plain rosso carries the same sweet-vermouth base and none of the quinine, so a Negroni or a Manhattan built on it comes out rounder and noticeably less bitter. Two dashes of an aromatic or quinine bitters put most of the edge back.
Vermouth chinato
Chinato is the wider category of quinine-enriched vermouths, and Punt e Mes is one branded member of it. Another chinato bitters in its own way and to its own depth, so taste the bottle before it goes into a Negroni variation.
