Vermouth Takes the Lead

Into The Barchive · Mar 19, 2026 · 39m · transcript

This week on Into the Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright give vermouth the attention it deserves.

For a lot of home bartenders, vermouth becomes a question mark. You buy a bottle for one martini or Manhattan, tuck it into the fridge door, and hope it is still good the next time you need it. Or worse, it sits on the bar cart getting dusty and oxidized while the drink gets blamed when things taste off.

But for most of cocktail history, vermouth was not a background player. It was often the main event.

In Episode 14, Blake and Tim move beyond vermouth as a modifier and explore it as one of…