Vermouth ¡Casero-Medialabero!

Homemade vermouth!

Makes 5 litres.

Stage One:

Buy 5 litres of dry white wine or rose. Believe it or nor even sweet red vermouth isnt made with red wine.

Also the quality doesnt need to be good. Set this aside. You need something strong! Brandy, grape eau-de-vie, cognac, grappa, even port or sherry. Vermouth is usually 16-18% alcohol, so we need something to proof this up. Now, to create a flavour explosion use any fruit or fruit peel. Berries, peaches, apples, or citrus peel! Soak that in about a 1 1/2 cups of brandy/other higher-proof spirit for 2 days

Stage Two:

Two Days Later 1. At the end of 2 days, take your brandy/fruit mixture and strain it. You can toss the fruits. Keep the booze. 2. wash and sterilise 5 x 1 litre bottles! (cerveza bottles are ideal!) 3. Then take half of the wine you have, add your herbs and spices, and bring it to a boil. Turn it off and let it sit. 4. Okay, this gets tricky and is easiest done in a copper pot. If you want a dry vermouth, skip this step. If you’re going for a sweet vermouth, you need to caramelize some sugar.

BE CAREFUL! take 1 cup of sugar and just 1-2 teaspoons of water. Slowly heat until the sugar is a warm brown color, but not burned. Take it off the heat and SLOWLY dribble in your infused brandy mixture. Mix until everything is combined into one happy syrup. 5. Now, into one big jar or the 5 bottles you collected, combine your herb/spice mixture with the remaining half a bottle of wine. 6.Add the sugar mixture, but if you’re not sure how sweet you want it, hold half of it back. Put the bottle in the fridge until it gets cold. 7. When it’s cold, take it out and strain a little bit into a glass. How does it taste? To make it sweeter, add more of your brandy/sugar mixture.

To make it drier or less intense, add some extra wine. Once you like the balance of sweet to dry, strain it with a cheesecloth to get all the herbs and spices out, and enjoy! Experiment! It’s just herbs and fruit mixed with wine! It’s supposed to be fun! Ingredient suggestions: Spice shop ingredients: Gentian root, Angelica root, Cardamom pods, star anise, vanilla bean Garden ingredients: Oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, coriander (cilantro seed), Wormwood (Artemesia absinthum) Dried citrus peel Fresh fruit.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/medialab-prado/sets/72157637040752885/

Sarah Miah!

Receta que llevamos a cabo el pasado Viernes en el Foodlad de Medialab-Prado: http://comunidad.medialab-prado.es/en/cook-it-your-self

Enlaces vía Txomin: http://elgrancatador.imujer.com/2855/como-hacer-vermouth-casero / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ranHBipdos