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Vermouth: History and Legal Regulations
At this year's Golden State of Cocktails in Los Angeles, I attended a seminar by Giuseppe Gallo called "The Truth About Vermouth."

I knew a few things having visited both Martini and Noilly Prat in the past (follow those links to my distillery visit posts), but learned a lot more about the history and legal categorization of vermouth during this talk.

Below are my notes. You can see most of this information on Giuseppe Gallo's Slideshare page as well.
- The word "vermouth" is based on the word for wormwood.
- Absinthe (also containing wormwood) is based on the Greek word for unpalatable, referring to wormwood's bitterness.
- Wormwood-infused wines go way, way back.
- The spice trade in the vermouth region was monopolized by Genova in Italy (bordering the Piedmont region in which Turin is located) and Marseille in France (across the bay from Noilly Prat's Marseillan)
- Part of Piedmont and part of Southern France were both part of the Kingdom of Savoy at one time. Then the Chambery region (where Dolin was founded; interior of France, north of Marseille) was traded to France, and the capital of Savoy was moved to Turin (where Martini was founded). So both sweet and dry styles of vermouth can essentially be traced to one place.
- The first commercial vermouth was Carpano, founded in 1786. Sweet-style vermouth. A legal decree made the official style of vermouth in Turin be the sweet "rosso" style.
- Noilly Prat in Marseillan was a dry style of vermouth, founded in 1813. It helped make France the center of dry-style of vermouth.
- The EU laws for vermouth (note all legal stuff below is based on the EU law, which is not the same as in the US) are here: EEC No 1601/91 and state
- Categories of Aromatized Wine (all have added alcohol and artemesia) are:
- Geographical Indications for Vermouth Can Be:
- Sugar quantities for vermouth are:
- Martini vermouth does all their infusions into neutral alcohol, not into the wine itself
- Martini (sweet, I assume) vermouth lasts 28 months after bottling when closed, and up to 8 months in the refrigerator after being opened.
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June 2, 2015
A Brief History of Popcorn in Cocktails

In my latest piece for Details.com I wrote about the history and current status of popcorn in drinks, be it fat-washed in or garnished atop.

It turns out that a million different places are doing it, and I mentioned about half of them and the various ways they're incorporating the movie food into the drinks.

Check it out here.

June 1, 2015
Natural Food (And Drink) Coloring Notes and Future Experiments
I'm at the very beginning of some research into natural food colorings for my seminar on Prehistoric Cocktail Technology at Tales of the Cocktail this July in New Orleans.

Last week I was in my local hippie grocery store (this doesn't narrow it down much when you live in San Francisco) and saw a line of plant-based natural food colorings called Color Garden. I wanted to see if they declared what they used to make the colorings, and they did:

The colors used are:
- Beet juice
- Purple carrot juice
- Turmeric
- Red cabbage juice
- Annatto (an orange tree seed)
- Caramel color
I am playing around with some of these flavors at home, dehydrating ingredients to concentrate them and adding them to water or vodka to make them liquid again. I'll keep you posted.

But an interesting thing to note is that while some of the colors have added citric acid, others have added baking soda: an acid and a base. Luckily, the website explained why this is the case for natural colors (content edited for clarity):

Warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) prefer an acidic environment. You might consider adding lemon juice.

Cool colors (green, blue, and purple) prefer an alkaline environment. You might consider adding baking soda.

Watch out for cream of tartar (in frosting). Cream of tartar lowers the pH of the icing (makes it more acidic), which is good for shelf-life, but this may limit pure natural food colors to the “warm” colors: red, orange, and yellow.

This could be something to keep in mind if you/I want to use colors in cocktails, as they tend to be acidic rather than basic.

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May 27, 2015
Prehistoric Cocktail Technology Live! at Tales of the Cocktail
At the Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans this July I'm giving a talk called Prehistoric Cocktail Technology Demo (Saturday morning), and surprisingly there are still tickets available.

I say surprisingly because this seminar is going to be amaaaaaazing. Some things I'm researching to demonstrate in the seminar include:
- Making natural food coloring to use in drinks
- Early carbonation technology and can we make a drink that fizzes instantly like Alka-Seltzer? There is going to be a lot of carbonation stuff, including ways to get better carbonation out of cocktails
- Clarification and filtration techniques from milk punch to carbon filters to chill filtration, to remove color and/or flavor from spirits and other ingredients
- Cocktail foaming agents and alternatives to egg whites- everything from glycerine to gum arabic to Irish moss
- Early distillation techniques
- Cooling reactions without ice
- Making cocktails without ice inside the shaker using the rock salt method like ice cream
- Insulation using old ice house techniques
Basically, it's basic science meets arts-and-crafts meets awesome.

I'm not sure what form many of the demos will take yet, but think big. I already have two lab assistants lined up to help.

So go buy your tickets, bring your camera, and maybe wear a raincoat.
May 22, 2015
Domaine Du Tariquet Armagnac Distillery Visit
This was the last of 12 armagnac houses I visited and we certainly saved the largest until the end. Domaine Du Tariquet is a gargantuan operation in the Bas Armagnac, but they mostly make table wine.

We walked all around this property, up on top of huge wine tanks (I'm scared of heights but I do it for you, dear reader), to a super modern bottling line, and then to the completely incongruously ridiculously small room in the middle of it all, where the single wood-fired armagnac still is slowly churning out eau de vie.

The family owns 900 hectares of land for both table wine and armagnac. They grow and distill the usual Ugni Blanc, Baco, and Folle Blanche (no Colombard as far as I know), but also Plant de Graisse. This grape varietal is one of ten allowed for armagnac, but this is the first place I heard of that actually used any but the top four. They say they began planting these when the future of Baco was uncertain (at one point they were going to have to get rid of all Baco vines because it's a hybrid).

For their armagnac they use only free-run juice and allow a long skin contact maceration before fermentation. For 4-5 days it sits on lees in temperature-controlled tanks. The distillation is also slow and takes 3-4 weeks. At the end of fermentation they try to distill the wine for armagnac as quickly as possible.

As is typical for armagnac, they distill on "light lees." As mentioned, their still is wood-fired, which seems pretty crazy given all the technology they're surrounded by. They have to add wood to the fire every 20 minutes or so. (They are purchasing an additional still soon, but I'm not sure where they'll put it.)

The still is a mobile armagnac continuous still, but it stays in place in the small room where it lives. During the distillation season, they run the still 24 hours but stop once each week to clean it.

They distill up to 55% ABV.

They have between four and five thousand barrels aging.

For dilution, they use the 'petite des eaux, which is a mix of water fortified with brandy to prevent spoilage at 19% ABV in their case. The water ages in barrels alongside the armagnac barrels it will dilute.

All their varietals are distilled and aged separately, not blended in the barrel. We visited an aging warehouse located at another family-owned property, a castle where our host Remy Grassa's father lives when he's in town (as one does). Most of their barrels are not made of local Gascony oak.

Before bottling they chill filter to -8 degrees Celsius and run it through a cellulose pad.

Unlike many brands of armagnac, they do not specialize in vintages, only releasing three or four of them every 10 years.

Tariquet is the brand of armagnac I see most often mixed into cocktails in San Francisco. Here are some probably-useless notes on stuff we tasted:
- Folle Blanche 8 year: 50.5% herbaceous, minty, sticks
- Folle Blanche 12 year old: 48.2% Mellower minty version of the 8
- Folle Blanche 15 year old: 47.2% Creamed spinach and mint, my favorite of these three
- 1995 vintage: 45.8% (60% Ugni Blanc, 40% Baco) Minty, herbaceous, singular, deep long finish, fresh and Doubleminty
- 1993 Vintage: 45.2% (60% Ugni Blanc, 40% Baco) Creamy French Oak, light
- 100th Anniversary Blend: 53.5% uses all four grape varietals. Nice mix of mint, rancio, wood, "narrow pepper", a touch smoky. Interesting/complex/fun. And of course, no longer available.
May 5, 2015
Armagnac Maison Gelas Visit
Armagnac Gelas produces some unique armagnacs: in addition to the standard blends and vintage bottlings, they also produce single-varietal bottlings (and were the first brand to do so back in the 1950s) and armagnacs with barrel finishes.

Our host for the visit was Philippe Gelas, a descendant of the brand founder. Like many armagnac houses, they do not own vineyards (actually his brother does, but they buy it from him) and do not distill themselves, but purchase eau de vie and age and blend it.

Philippe says that different grapes used in armagnac grow best in different soils:
- Ugni Blanc and Colombard grow better in chalky/clay soils
- Folle Blanche and Baco grow better in sandy soils
Gelas has only been using Colombard for the past five years. It's not ready to be launched in their single-varietal line yet however.

They purchase from four suppliers, one of which is Philippe's brother. Though they don't distill, the warehouse (as usual, tucked around the corner from the office building) has a square column still on display that was built by Philippe's grandfather. He says it was built specifically to reduce the heady heaviness in distillation of armagnac.

When having wine distilled, they distill Ugni Blanc and Colombard to 60% ABV, and Baco and Folle Blanche lower to 54-56%. Philippe says you get more finesse out of Ugni Blanc this way.

Unlike many producers who call for a heavy toast, they have their barrels prepared with a medium toast.

We then popped to the tasting area – a little corner of a souvenir shop- and tasted a ton of armagnac. Here are some quick and probably useless notes:
- Seleccion – a young Ugni Blanc/Baco blend meant for cocktails. Philippe told us this one (only) has a tiny bit of sugar added to it. None of the others have any added sugar or color.
- 8 Year – Ugni Blanc/Baco blend 40% ABV. I liked this one better for cocktails; it could substitute for aged rum quite nicely
- 18 year Folle Blanche – 44.8% Spicy, thinnish, grapey
- 25 year Ugnic Blanc – 48.8% Delicious, rancio, peppery jalapeno
- 50 year Baco – 40% Smells like bread and butter, tastes dry and woody with mushrooms
- 11 year armagnac finished for 1 year in Lustao Oloroso sherry barrel – 54% ABV surprising and sweet
- 18 year armagnac finished in a port barrel – interesting ginger spice comes in
- 1943 vintage – Delicious rootbeer spice
April 29, 2015
Distillery Visit: Armagnac Delord
Armagnac Delord is located at the edge of the town of Lannepax in the Bas Armagnac region. They took us up a vineyard-covered hill for a view looking down upon the town.

I visited the property in November of 2014, but unlike many of the other armagnac houses they were not planning to begin distilling for the season until January 5th. Their plan was to distill for 5 weeks.

They make two brands: Delord and Marie Duffau. Though they do make some traditional products like prunes in wine and floc de gascone (the armagnac version of pinneau des charantes), they do not make any table wine.

Delord owns 42 hectares in 5 parcels around the village. They grow four grapes:
- 56% Ugni Blanc
- 13% Baco
- 24% Colombard
- 7% Folle Blanche
They are moving away from Colombard, however, toward Baco. (On my visit moving away from Colombard seemed to be happening at a few houses.)

Delord is one of three armagnac houses (along with Janneau and Samalens) that uses pot stills for the armagnac, along with the traditional armagnac continuous still. About 20% of Delord's wine is double-distilled.

Double pot distilled eau de vie at Delord is used in:
- Their blanche de armagnac (not aged in barrels)
- Part of the Delord VS bottling
- Part of the Marie Duffau Napoleon bottling
Their pot stills take about 8 hours per distillation, and they distill the wine up to 70% ABV, which is pretty standard, and put it into barrels at a reduced 65%.

One of their continuous armagnac stills dates back to 1900. Their armagnac stills have plates inside, as is normal. They prefer to use the spider-shaped plates as they say they get more mixing between the gas vapor and the liquid wine with them.

The old still from 1900 distills up to about 58% ABV, while the newer one goes up to 60-62% after the single distillation. They mix the distillates from these two stills together and put it into barrels at 55% ABV.

Aging brandy is aerated at the same rate whether the brandy came from a pot or column still, but they say they have to dilute the armagnac column still brandy more slowly than the stuff from the pot still.

They have 4 aging cellars; three of them crammed around the office building on the edge of town.

Unlike most of the armagnac houses I visited, they use just 10% local Gascony oak to age their brandy, the majority of it being Limousin oak. They give it a high toast. While aging they have about a 2% angels' share.

Last year they sold 200,000 bottles, 80% of them blends and the rest vintages.

We had time to create the wax seal for the bottle. Bam! I should get hired doing that, as long as you can drink on the job.
April 28, 2015
Distillery Visit: Domaine Boingneres Armagnac

In the armagnac region most of the stills are continuous stills, and they run them nearly 24/7 throughout the distilling season which is November through January, though legally they can distill through March 31.

Because the stills are on and someone has to be there watching over them anyway, many of the houses throw distillery dinners during the season. They invite guests to come have dinner (and drinks of course) while the stills run in the background. On occasion they'll need to change the barrel that the still is emptying into.

That was the experience we had at Domaine Boingneres. Our dinner was in the tiny room with one odd-shaped continuous armagnac still, served on a fold-out table by a single chef-caterer. Yes to all of it.

Domaine Boingneres owns about 22 hectares. 14 of them are Folle Blanche, while the rest are split between Ugni Blanc and Colombard. Because of their specializing in Folle Blanche, they use only a medium toast to their barrels to not mask its flavor.

Their still resembles a pot still but there are 6 plates inside.

On the night we visited they were distilling Folle Blanche grapes. The wine came in at 78.4% ABV and they were distilling it to 52%, which is pretty low even for armagnac.

This year they were planning to distill 40 barrels. While distilling they can make 2 barrels in 24 hours, so this means that it their distilling season will be about 20 days long.

While distilling, the distiller would dip a wooden stick into the barrel to see how full it was, and based on this he'd know how much longer to keep filling it before exchanging the full barrel sitting beneath the still with a new empty one.

This is a very well-respected armagnac house. They do not chill filter any of their armagnacs nor add caramel coloring. The only product they reduce with water to bottle strength is the 5 year old.

Because they don't reduce their aging brandy with water, the don't do the annual aeration and dilution of the barrels that pretty much every other armagnac house we visited does. The do top off the barrels while they're aging though, and to do this they use the brandy stored in the first and last barrels distilled that season as they're most likely to be the outliers. Distributing them across all the barrels of the season over the years would lessened the impact of any differences.

To get to the aging warehouse, we put on our coats and were led by flashlight across the grass to a barn. There we spent a lot of time dipping into barrels and trying armagnac from 1986, 1972, 1976, 1979, and other years.

If I could spend the season dining by the still and dipping into barrels, I wouldn't mind French winters at all.

April 22, 2015
Armagnac Dartigalongue Distillery Visit

Armagnac Dartigalongue also claims to be the oldest brand of armagnac in Bas Armagnac as does their nearby neighbor Casterede. They're a rather large brand, exporting about 60% of the 50,000 bottles they produce annually. They also make the brand Croix De Salles.

Dartigalongue does not own their own vineyards nor distill their own brandy, but has long-term contracts with their four winegrowers in Bas Armagnac and their distillers. They use the famous mobile distillers, which I assume distill on site at the wineries rather than here where where it's all about aging.

Of the big four grape varietals (baco, ugni blanc, folle blanche, and colombard) they only don't use the last one.

Their wine is distilled by the roving distillers to 60% ABV.

They typically use only barrels made of local Gascony oak but now are experimenting with several other barrels – we saw a small part of the warehouse with the same eau de vie aging in four different barrels as a test. They are also testing steam-assembled barrels, which I believe is the faster, more modern way to bend barrel staves in bigger cooperages.

In armagnac, producers typically reduce with water and aerate the aging brandy on a regular basis, and everyplace seems to do it a little bit differently. Here at Dartigalongue, every two years they aerate the brandy for half a day and reduce it by 2% ABV for the first 10 years. They say this created the special taste of that brand. After ten years, they only reduce the armagnac every 5-7 years or so.

Our host Benoît Hillion said that if they didn't aerate armagnac, it would be tougher and less ethereal, less open, more aggressive, and have a shorter finish.

The Dartigalongue house is at street level at the edge of a small old town, and as it typical in armagnac that house is stuffed full of flammable liquid: We walked upstairs from the office to find their dry cellar, then down into the basement to find their cool, humid cellar.

Hillion described the house style as "aromatic but not without agressivity; spicenss of course, and a long aftertaste." I often found the house style to be spicy-minty and not as green and mushroomy as other armagnacs. The 1975 vintage I thought tasted of tarragon, while a 1955 vintage was creamy, sandy, and spicy.

After the tasting we walked across the street to another small building we own. Downstairs was a museum of sorts, with lots of vintage armagnac paraphernalia including racy/misogynist menu ads from long ago, and cruise ship wine lists and very old demijohns of armagnac upstairs.

April 21, 2015
Distillery Visit: Chateau de Maniban Armagnac at Chateau Castarede
I had the chance to visit the Chateau Castarede, a 17th Century estate/castle in the Bas Armagnac region where they produce armagnac. Florence Castarède was our host for the day. She says they're the oldest armagnac brand, but so too does Dartigalongue.

They make three armagnac labels:
- Armagnac Castarède
- Château de Maniban
- Nismes Delclou
They grow the grapes for their products, primarily Ugni Blanc and Colombard grapes. The region has the sandy soils full of fossils and shells of the former ocean floor.

They have two stills; one gas-powered, one wood-fueled.

While we were there, the cellarmaster was doing the annual inspection of the barrels of aging armagnac, tasting each one and noting whether or not it needed to be aerated.

Our brief visit there involved mostly a tour around the castle and then lots of time in their newest barrel room, where we spent a long time drinking barrels from our birth years. The older I get, the harder that is to find.
April 15, 2015