Apéro Aperitif Bar & Restaurant

309 Blake Street, Raleigh

919-803-7475, aperoraleigh.com

“There’s no vermouth in America!” exclaims Giancarlo Mancino.

Mancino, an artisanal Italian vermouth maker and importer, is leading a spring cocktail class at Apéro, a new aperitif bar and restaurant in downtown Raleigh. The late April event had sold out—about thirty professionals had paid $30 to be here—which took Mancino by surprise. Americans have never been big on vermouth, he says.

“If you want to impress your guests,” he continues, “stay away from gin and tonic and grab a really good bottle of vermouth, some marjoram and rosemary, and garnish with April flowers.”

He passes around our first cocktail, a refreshing herbal concoction inspired by a G&T and made of Bianco Ambrato (white vermouth), lavender bitters, yellow rose petals, and twists of lime zest.

Mancino has been involved in his family-owned business since he was seven; he learned how to make vermouth from his grandmother. His family fortifies a low-cost table wine from northern Italy and aromatizes it with forty botanicals.

To Mancino, vermouth is more than the family business. It’s an essential part of the world in which he grew up, with aperitivos. The word means to open the palate, in the same way a digestif like amaro closes the palate after a meal. In Italy, he says, communities are drawn together through aperitivo culture, a post-work, pre-dinner socialization ritual centered on snacks and drinks.

Americans’ aversion to vermouth, Mancino says, goes back decades, to when low-quality varieties were used as mixers for martinis.

That’s how Brittany Dunn, a bartender at The Oak, Kitchen & Bourbon Bar, first experienced them: “I usually think bitter when I think vermouth,” she says.

That’s how I thought of vermouth, too, until a few years ago, when I was in Priorat, Spain. My companion and I had ordered wine at our small hotel bar. A traveler next to us ordered vermouth, was asked if he wanted red or white, and with an orange peel or soda water. It was midday, and the drink looked refreshingly enticing. We were curious, so we inquired. Vermut, we learned, is deeply ingrained in Catalan culture, an ubiquitous standalone drink. Many bars make their own. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Mancino passes around his version of a martini, made with Mancino Sakura vermouth, a specialty bottle infused with cherry blossom extract from Kyoto. He makes twenty-five hundred bottles of Sakura per year—Japan imports a thousand, and a handful of bars and specialty wine shops, from London to Oslo to Raleigh, get the rest. Sakura’s flavor is reminiscent of lychee, but the cherry blossom notes are far superior. It’s dangerously easy to drink.

As with any vermouth cocktail, chilling is the secret weapon. Mancino says a martini glass should be small, so it stays chilled and sips like an espresso.

As a recent vermouth convert, you can imagine my excitement when I learned that Apéro had opened in Raleigh earlier this year, and my delight when I discovered that it not only carried vermouth but specialized in it.

Apéro is a French happy hour concept—the French have their own vermouth culture—co-owned by Will Jeffers of Stanbury and Royale, Jesse Bardyn and Jeff Seizer of Royale, and general manager Nicole Pletcher features an enticingly eclectic small plates menu, drawing on Spanish, French, and Italian influences. Boards of cheese, cured meats, and pate are main staples.

Pletcher grew up living in Peru, Brazil, Pakistan, and Connecticut before settling in Raleigh, working at Death & Taxes and the Raleigh Wine Shop, and studying vermouths, sherries, and quinquinas—an aromatized wine traditionally made of Peruvian cinchona bark or gentian root. She noticed a hole in the city’s beverage scene for sherries and fortified wines, but when she opened Apéro, she didn’t realize that vermouth would become the main attraction.

Pletcher introduces patrons to vermouth by introducing the three different styles: dry (typically white and dry), and white and red, which are both sweet. The type you’re drawn to depends on the type of liquor you drink. If you’re a bourbon drinker, you’ll enjoy the richer, sweeter—versus savory—viscosity of a rosso. Gin drinkers will go for the botanicals of a bianco.

“I don’t joke that vermouths are actually pre-batch cocktails,” says Pletcher. “They’re made with sweet elements, bitter elements, and citric elements—and so are cocktails.”

An added benefit: Vermouth cocktails tend to have about half the alcohol as liquor drinks, which is healthy for a city that runs on cars.

Bonus: Drink This

Try these three vermouths, paired with items from Apéro’s menu. 

1. La Quintinye Vermouth Royale, Extra Dry (France)

Tasting notes: Refreshing, botanical, and citrusy, with savory olive brine-like qualities that fall onto the palate, with a long finish. Smells of a forest, invoking qualities of bergamot, rosemary, and lavender. Perfect for a dry martini, but use less booze—one ounce of vodka or gin, and two ounces of vermouth. 

Pair with: A Caesar salad or roasted vegetables, or the ‘Nduja & Boquerones, a salami spread with marinated anchovies served with toasted bread.

2. Contratto Bianco (Italy)

Tasting notes: Sweet candied citrus with ginger notes. Smells of dried flowers and perfume with hints of fresh mint. A long, bitter, yet balanced fruity finish. Perfect on its own.

Pair with: Charcuterie and fromage, or the smoked burrata with cranberry mostarda to balance the sweet and bitter.

3. Lacuesta Vermouth (Spain)

Tasting notes: Rich on the palate, slightly caramelized yet herbal. Smoky on the nose, tastes of dried herbs, dried figs, prunes, and stewed fruit. Similar to an old-fashioned.

Pair with: Crispy pork belly.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled a type of vermouth. It’s Contratto, not Contrado.

Contact food and digital editor Andrea Rice at [email protected].

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