Cocktails with Rosso vermouth
Rosso vermouth is a sweet, aromatized fortified wine flavored with wormwood and other botanicals, colored deep red-brown, typically with caramel.
ABV15–17%
Substitutes for Rosso vermouth
Without rosso, bianco vermouth comes closest: the balance holds, though the drink loses its red-brown color and dried-fruit depth. Dry vermouth works next, with a scant barspoon of syrup per 25 ml to bring the sugar back. In a Manhattan the color is part of the drink, so a pale swap shows at a glance. Any other brand of rosso swaps in one for one.
Bitter aromatized wine
Wine bittered with quinine or gentian, such as a quinquina or an americano. Swapped one for one for rosso, it makes the drink noticeably more bitter.
Dry vermouth
Under EU rules, a vermouth labeled dry has less than 50 g of sugar per liter. One labeled sweet, as rosso usually is, has 130 g or more. Dry vermouth is also pale rather than red-brown.
Bianco vermouth
A pale, sweet vermouth, much sweeter than dry.
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.
