vermouth

Two Lustau twists on sips for Father’s Day

Two Lustau twists on sips for Father’s Day

Spain celebrates Father's Day as the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, which is the kickoff of spring. Here in North America, Father's Day marks the transition into summer. We've chosen two stupendous wines from the Andalucían sherry producer, Lustau, for diametrically opposite approaches to sipping on a summer evening. It really comes down to whether your dad is a Manhattan or a Martini drinker. Either goes well with a Spanish snack plate of marcona almonds, potato chips, and slices of Manchego cheese. How sweet it is On the sweet side, we've picked the often overlooked cream sherry category. At Lustau, that's East India Solera Sherry — a style designed to mimic historic sweet sherries aged at sea in casks that shuttled from Spain to...Read More
California vermouth? T.W. Hollister answers, Of course!

California vermouth? T.W. Hollister answers, Of course!

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that vermouth (or vermut) is having a moment, both in Spain and the U.S. Our own history with fortified wine muddled with botanicals and aged in a barrel goes back a few decades when Lillet was still hip in certain suburban settings. We were quite taken with the ice-cold, slightly sweet and bitter aperitif when the late, great mystery and suspense writer Andrew Coburn poured us some on his back deck one evening. He'd picked up the habit on the French set of Un dimanche de flic, a film adaptation of his novel, Off Duty. Lillet is not vermouth, but they are kissing cousins. In today's vermouth fever, almost any aromatized wine passes muster...Read More