On Monday, food writer Alicia Kennedy published an excellent essay on the dirty martini in her newsletter (definitely consider subscribing). Alicia herself is not a dirty martini lover. She takes her martini the same classic way I take mine: Beefeater gin and Dolin dry vermouth, stirred and garnished with an olive. When Alicia recently passed through Philadelphia on the book tour for her memoir, On Eating, we enjoyed a few martinis together.

In “Notes on the Dirty Martini,” she talks about how the prevalence of the dirty martini has skewed classic martini orders:

If you order an olive—an aceituna, if you will—as your garnish for a martini, as I do, you also must specify that you do not want it dirty. The bartender will assume dirtiness and pull out tins for shaking rather than a mixing glass for stirring. I don’t know whether this has always been the case, or whether it’s a symptom of the current popularity of this specific variation.

Dirty means there’s an addition of olive brine to the cocktail. There are people who think a “filthy” and “icy” (meaning shaken) vodka martini are the pinnacle of the beverage: I don’t agree with them. This is not a categorical imperative; I’m not Kant. I just have some thoughts on how the brine obsession has affected my martinis negatively.

Despite her reluctance to engage with the dirty martini, Alicia lays out some basic rules. A dirty martini differs from a regular martini in that it must always use vodka (brine doesn’t play well with juniper-kissed gin). Also, it must always be shaken and not stirred. Finally, the olives must be chilled in the fridge so they don’t bring down the drink’s temperature.

I concur, though I haven’t always. I’ve always said that a real martini (dirty or otherwise) must always use gin, but over the years I’ve come to realize that vodka is simply better in the dirty martini. My ratio is 2 ½ ounces of vodka, a half-ounce of dry vermouth, and a half-ounce of olive brine—shaken, strained and poured with cloudy majesty, and garnished with several skewered olives.

Dirty martinis certainly meet that 21st century demand for more robust flavor. The taste of olive and its brine brings a divisive flavor that has both lovers and haters.

Among the mixology crowd, there’s generally been a vague sense that the dirty martini is sort of…well…not what Cocktail People drink. It’s not trashy or declassé, per se. It’s not in the same category as, say, the Long Island Iced Tea or Fuzzy Navel or Appletini. But still. I don’t know if the dirty martini gets more side eye than the espresso martini, but it definitely gets side eye. In Alicia Kennedy’s essay, she addresses this. “I will admit to finding a dirty, and especially a ‘filthy’ martini to be a bit tacky, ok? The cloudiness of it! The iciness! But I can understand the desire,” she writes.

I believe the dirty martini can still claim status as a “classic.” It has a history. According to the Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, adding olive brine to a martini has been around since at least 1901, served with muddle olives at the bar of the famed Waldorf Astoria.

Though he didn’t call it a “dirty martini,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt loved using olive brine in his martini. Roosevelt “was reported to have splashed a bite of brine in his drinks at the White House,” writes Robert Simonson in his book, The Martini Cocktail. “Because of this, many have called FDR the author of the dirty martini.” Legend has it that he poured dirty martinis for Stalin and Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1945 as they discussed post-war Europe. A sketchier legend claims Stalin actually put the idea into Roosevelt’s head.

But at this point, the popularity and ubiquity of the dirty martini goes well beyond its place in the glass. “Dirty martini” as a conceptual flavor trend has likely entered the same realm as “everything bagel” and might be nearing the status of “pumpkin spice.”

“Dirty martini” seem to have already overtaken the space formerly occupied by the “bourbon-flavored” phenomenon. We live in a world where you can find bourbon-flavored toothpicks, bourbon-flavored maple syrup, bourbon-flavored cigars, and bourbon-flavored Dr. Pepper. Whiskey expert Susannah Skiver Barton wrote about this trend, which she called “Creeping Bourbon Effect,” for Everyday Drinking a few years back. As Barton writes:

Why is this happening? The bourbon boom, of course, has everyone scrambling for a piece of the pie. But more insidious, and powerful, is the changing palate of the bourbon drinker, which now demands more robust flavor (and often concurrent higher proof) than that which was offered in the past. This may be part of a broader shift toward more flavorful food and beverages generally, reflected in the 21st-century ubiquity of foods that would have been unusual by most Americans’ standards even a generation ago: sriracha, queso, kale chips.

Likewise, we are now seeing dirty martini ice cream, dirty martini scented candles, and dirty martini desserts. I wish I knew why, at this moment in human history, the dirty martini is having its flavor moment. Perhaps my readers have some idea of why?

Leave a comment

I believe I saw the beginnings of this dirty-martini-flavored trend a few years ago, when I worked as writer on the “trend team” at Taste of Home. The job often involved chronicling viral TikTok mashup recipes. Whether it was lasagna soup, cowboy butter, crispy sushi rice waffles, kimchi grilled cheese, caviar and Doritos, cheese-wrapped pickles, or Dr. Pepper cupcakes—if it was a mashup or hack that has several millions views on TikTok, I’ve likely made it and written about it.

During that time, I cooked a dish called Dirty Martini Pasta and wrote an article about it. “This is like, if you took a dirty martini and made it into a pasta,” said the TikTok creator, legallyhealthyblonde, who developed the recipe. As I explained in my article:

When I first saw that a recipe for dirty martini pasta was trending on social media, my immediate thought was: Why didn’t someone think of this before? After all, people love dirty martinis and they love pasta…

Just like everything bagel seasoning or bourbon-flavored stuff, “dirty martini” has become a super popular flavor descriptor for food beyond cocktails. We’ve seen the rise of dirty martini salads and dirty martini deviled eggs, for instance. So dirty martini pasta just makes sense.

Dirty Martini Pasta, despite a catchy name, has its basis in classic pasta flavors—olive, lemon, garlic, parsley, oil, butter (I’ve included the recipe below). The only element that might make an Italian mad is the optional crumbling of blue cheese, or perhaps de-glazing the saucepan with gin. The Dirty Martini Pasta is likely less offensive to Italians than my own experiments with pesto (as I wrote about in “God and Pesto are Dead”).

In the end, like Alicia Kennedy, I generally avoid the dirty martini and stick to the real thing, with gin, vermouth, and a solitary, briny olive. A few months ago, I posted my own martini manifesto, and I will leave you with this:

More than a decade ago, I wrote columns insisting that the Manhattan was a superior cocktail to the martini (“more complex” and “more flavorful”). I was wrong. As I get older, I realize that a martini is clearly superior. I find myself making more of them these days, often in my grandmother’s martini pitcher with the etched seagull. Recently, I’ve decided I like them with more gin—more of the juniper bite—and less vermouth. Or maybe I’ve always liked them this way, but for whatever reason have always been trying something different.

I don’t exactly know what’s made me reconsider something as basic as the martini. Maybe it’s been seeing my sons and their friends “discover” the dry martini for themselves. Maybe I’m just finally willing to embrace some of life’s truths and certainties—even if it’s simply a 5:1 ratio of gin to vermouth.

I’ve often quoted H.L. Mencken’s famous assertion that the martini is “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet” and there’s certainly something poetic about it.

But by a certain age, trust me, too much poetry—frankly, too much talk, too much texting, too much communication in general—can be a recipe for disaster. Better just to focus on gin, vermouth, and bitters in the way you like it best.

Dirty Martini Pasta

People love dirty martinis and people love pasta. Mixing the two was inevitable. Depending on your level of traditionalism—or how Italian you are—this is either an innovative idea or a heretical abomination. Castelvetrano or manzanilla olives work best.

• 1 pound spaghetti, linguini or other long pasta

• 4 tablespoons butter

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 cloves garlic

• 20-24 olives, pitted and chopped (10-ounce container)

• Zest of 2 lemons

• 2 tablespoons gin

• 3 tablespoons olive brine

• Juice of one lemon

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Crumbled blue cheese (optional)

• Parsley, freshly chopped

Boil the pasta in salted water according to the directions on the package. Drain the pasta, then toss it with a tablespoon of butter. Reserve some of the pasta water.

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook it for 1 minute. Add the chopped olives and lemon zest. Cook them until garlic turns golden.

Add gin to deglaze the saucepan, stirring until it evaporates. Then add the olive brine, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of butter, stirring until they’re combined.

Add the cooked pasta to the saucepan, toss to combine, and season it with salt and pepper to taste, adding reserved pasta water if necessary to make the pasta creamier. Top the dirty martini pasta with more chopped olives, parsley, lemon zest and blue cheese (if desired). Serves 4.

Let me begin by saying I love the Negroni, deeply, despite…everything.

I’m old enough to remember when the Negroni was first taken up by drinkers who wanted to show themselves to have superior palates. Early adopters of the Negroni would have been insufferable Gen Xers (like me) in the mid-to-late 1990s, usually someone who studied abroad in Italy (like me).

If I can pinpoint the moment when Negronis came on the radar, I would guess it was slightly after the swing-dancing, cigar-bar, martini-renaissance of the late Clinton administration (think Swingers) and right before the start of the speakeasy trend (which still refuses to die). What happened over the next decade—Negroni Discourse, ubiquitous variations on cocktail lists, Negroni Week—was perhaps inevitable.

By the early 21st century, there seemed to be three ways a mixologist could make their mark on a recipe: 1) Add a bunch of green Chartreuse; 2) substitute mezcal; 3) put your own little spin to the Negroni. By a slight majority, most chose Option 3.

This was the era of so many articles explaining that Negroni Sbagliato meant “mistaken Negroni,” and was made with prosecco instead of gin. People began eschewing Campari for knock-offs like Gran Classico or Luxardo Bitter, or other amaros (or amari, if you were insufferable). The so-called Negroni Bianco, with white vermouth and Suze/Lillet/Cocchi Americano/whatever reared its ugly head. There was the Agavoni (with tequila), the East Indian Negroni (with rum), and the Unusual Negroni (with gin, Lillet Blanc, and Aperol).

I admit that, in the late aughts, I did all of the above. In Boozehound (2011), I even devoted an entire chapter to, ahem, “Improving the Negroni”:

In theory, I wanted a Negroni, but in reality, the Negroni was lacking something. That distressed me: What if all the fancy-schmancy tasting I’ve been doing lately has irrevocably rewired my palate? What if I can never again go back to being the young, carefree person who loved nothing better than the simple pleasures of a Negroni in summertime?

My solution: I would use my hard-won cocktail wisdom and experience to re-engineer, and possibly improve, the Negroni. Starting with the classic formula, I would illustrate how nearly all good new cocktails evolve. In doing so, I would also reclaim my old drink and perhaps a part of my youth. Or something like that.

Ummm, yeah. The late aughts “cocktail renaissance” was a wild time.

Then came the “Negroni backlash,” which lasted at least another decade. In the 2010s, The Awl’s regular bashing of the Negroni always made me chuckle. First was, of course, Evelyn Everlady’s darkly funny, bad-boyfriend classic, “Negroni Season,” in 2010 (“Actually, he is asleep on my couch. It’s Negroni season, and you know he makes the absolute best Negronis ever, so we may have had a few too many and he slept here. Sorry you were worried,” is the message she gets from the woman her man is sleeping with).

Then there were Matt Buchanan’s gleeful hit pieces, “Negroni Weak” and “Death to Negronis”:

When made properly — not too heavy on the gin, not with shitty vermouth and without telling anyone next to you how great it is — the negroni is perfectly fine. It has, itself, committed no sins. However, if you were to put everybody who is dying to tell you how much they like negronis into a bar, it would be the single largest and worst bar in the world, a sticky cesspool of people, standing should to shoulder, talking animatedly about nothing except how wonderfully the negroni balances its floral, herbal notes with bitterness and sweetness; how they can’t believe that other people don’t love them as much as they do, what is wrong with their palate; how they had the best negroni of their life at some bar you’ve never been to, or in Italy (which is a steadfast lie, because no one in Italy knows how to make cocktails); how their own slightly tweaked proportion of clear liquor to sweet wine-liquor to bitter pink liquor is in fact the best of all possible negroni variations, and while the negroni spinoffs like the far sturdier boulevardier, with a backbone of whiskey, are fine, the true negroni is better and able to be enjoyed at all times of day, but most especially during negroni season

That type of person still holds forth on Negronis and their variations. In 2019, Helen Rosner wrote a lovely piece in The New Yorker about her own favorite variation, entitled “The Perfect Thanksgiving Cocktail Is the Boulevardier,” (“My preferred rendition, made with rye, is something that sticklers will note is more properly called an Old Pal”) only to be mansplained by the sticklers of Cocktail Twitter who didn’t read her article and scolded her version as “actually an Old Pal not a Boulevardier.”

As I said at the beginning of another “Negroni Season,” once upon a time when I was a heavy Twitter user:

Years later, as much of the Negroni Discourse fades into memory, the one thing that remains is the Negroni itself. Despite all the nonsense, despite the backlash, it is still the finest drink, its simple ratio of equal parts gin-vermouth-Campari nearly impossible to mess up. It is the perfect cocktail. Or at least it is for me.

Of course, I have my own preferences. I prefer Dolin or Cocchi Storico sweet vermouth to the Carpano Antica Formula that so many people use. After dalliances with other liqueurs, I rarely stray from Campari. (Yes, I keep both vermouth and Campari in my fridge.) I generally go for a juniper-forward, big-brand gin like Beefeater’s or Tanqueray. In my mind, a proper Negroni is always stirred and always garnished with an orange peel. Probably my main difference with other people’s Negronis is simply that I enjoy mine straight up and not on the rocks.

When I opt for a variation, because I’m out of gin or Campari, I generally do one of two recipes. I enjoy the Boulevardier (bourbon-sweet vermouth-Campari), but like Helen Rosner, I prefer the Old Pal: rye, Campari and dry vermouth. In fact, I sometimes will substitute dry vermouth in a normal Negroni as well. (I find that the Old Pal and Boulevardier are sometimes nice with 1.5 ounces of the whiskey to one ounce of the vermouth and Campari, along with a lemon-peel twist).

Or, since I also love the artichoke-based amaro Cynar (I am 100% on Team Cynar), I will substitute that in place of Campari in a Cyn-Cin. There are numerous versions of the Cyn-Cin, but like the Old Pal I find that dry vermouth works really nicely. I made a Cyn-Cin recently with equal parts Cynar, dry vermouth, and Beefeater’s (stirred, straight up, orange peel twist) and it was the best cocktail I’d had all summer.

In any case, if you haven’t figured it out by now: There is no such thing as Negroni Season. Every season is Negroni Season.

Readers, as always, I would be delighted to hear your own Negroni variations.

Leave a comment

Related Content on Everyday Drinking

A couple of weekends ago, standing in a boutique bottle shop, I was confronted with a deep sense of confusion as I became hypnotized by their many-hued vermouth section. Between the artistic labels—many of which feature illustrations of animals and saturated color palettes—I recognized words I know: dry, sweet, rosso, blanc. But beyond that I was befuddled, even after asking the clerk for guidance. Two from Pennsylvania, one from New York, one from Spain, one from France, a few from Italy. I didn’t have a plan that day, just a thirst for an aromatized discovery, so after many minutes of deliberation I left with three bottles I had never seen before: one dry, one bianco, and one sweet (black?) for a grand total of $140.

According to Vogue, “everyone” is drinking vermouth. The Spirits Business says vermouth is finally getting its “starring role.” Hell, I even predicted this would be the year of vermouth on Business of Drinks’ 2026 predictions episode. These claims are based on recent data showing a 28.7 percent increase in vermouth sales beyond the traditional strongholds of France, Italy, and Spain from 2019 to 2025. In North America specifically, the vermouth market size is projected to reach $9.51 billion by 2034 from $5.06 billion in 2026.

On the surface you may, like Vogue, think this suggests tangible and widespread changes in the way vermouth is being consumed in the United States. You may think La Hora del Vermut has finally taken hold of the masses like the New York Times has claimed it will for years. But no, that is not what is happening. What I am observing is a bifurcation in the vermouth category—driven by a misinterpretation of the data—that conflates a real rising demand for classic cocktail vermouth with the much lesser demand for new-age sipping vermouth. This is inadvertently leaving producers and drinkers of vermouth as confused as I was in the bottle shop.

Though the craft cocktail revival originally launched in bigger American cities in the mid-2000s, it never stopped spreading. In 2026, you’d be hard pressed to find a suburban American downtown without a New American small plates restaurant serving craft cocktails—the kind of place where a too-large group of millennial moms gathers for a rare night out over riffed-on classics with clever names. Vermouth is the defining difference between a nonsense cocktail and a quality classic, something that almost any cocktail bar is getting right today. The craft cocktail culture eventually left the headlines and colonized the suburbs. Now it’s clear vermouth’s astounding growth metrics may simply be riding that wave instead of reflecting something specific to vermouth at all. Could the billions of dollars of growth be just the slow, steady spread of normal Americans learning how to make a proper drink?

However, everything I have read about vermouth’s re-emergence locates its relevance in something outside the product itself: wellness, moderation, European aperitivo culture. In Vogue they say, “the growth of a lower-ABV drink like vermouth feels aligned with larger cultural conversations around wellness, decreased indulgence, and mindful drinking.” The Spirits Business says, “many other markets are using apéritifs as opportunities for flexible, early‐ evening imbibing.” This is allowing the category—and vermouth in particular—to travel globally.

The only people I hear praising vermouth on its own are a relatively small number of devoted vermouth fans running obscure beverage programs—and they’ve been saying it for years. This is not unlike the “explosion” of craft non-alcoholic drinks, marketed as the answer to the sobriety movement, until we learned that most craft NA products are consumed by people who also drink alcohol. There is a lot of noise in this category, and despite there being a seemingly infinite array of NA options, most people just buy a rack of Athletic Brewing and call it a day.

The prevailing narrative and the actual consumer are two different things. Vermouth has its own version of this: a new wave of restaurants in Los Angeles, New York, and beyond are running genuinely interesting vermouth-by-the-glass programs. Vogue cites a handful—Dom’s Taverna in Santa Barbara pours a house vermouth made in Barcelona, Bar Siesta in Los Angeles offers vermouth flights, Park Rose in New York runs a tableside vermouth cart, and Eleven Madison Park makes a house-made, zero-proof vermouth with seasonal variations. This might feel like a watershed to anyone who remembers a time (the aughts?) when vermouth had no presence on a menu at all (I don’t). But I cannot fathom that a dozen restaurants committing to vermouth by the glass is what’s driving billions of dollars in category growth. This is where the narrative gets hijacked: the growth gets credited to what is, in reality, a vast minority of vermouth drinking—new, but minor. It feeds the culture of vermouth in the US, but it isn’t what’s paying for that $9.51 billion projection.

Once I returned home that weekend, hands pulverized from carrying a double paper bag of vermouth and bitters fifteen blocks in the summer sun, I unloaded and immediately poured the cloudy Philadelphia-made dry vermouth over ice. Ripe ruby red grapefruit exploded from the glass, carrying me back to winter mornings watching my mother eat her half grapefruit with a serrated spoon and a steaming cup of herbal tea. A minty mid-palate, a mellow finish, grapefruit bitterness lingering. Delicious? Yes. Would I mix this in a martini? Absolutely not.

Many vermouth advocates point to vermouth culture in Spain as the case study for drinking vermouth on its own. The Spanish style, less bitter and more sweet, is made to be drunk solo. I think almost anyone could enjoy vermouth this way if it was presented to them. I also love a siesta and a 10 pm dinner, but will these cultural phenomena ever really penetrate American daily life? I don’t think so. The reality is that most Americans are not regularly putting themselves in scenarios where they might discover this way of enjoying vermouth.

The concept of drinking vermouth on its own has piggybacked on the “no and low” conversation, positioning vermouth as a lower-alcohol alternative to sipping a spirit—but when you sit with that idea, it’s clear that not many people would reach for three ounces of 16 percent vermouth to moderate when they could just have a 12 percent abv grüner veltiner. I’ve amplified this narrative myself, so I understand its appeal. Once, at a bachelorette party in Charleston, I asked the bartender to sneakily trade out my tequila shots with blanc vermouth so I could “keep up” with the group. That worked for me, but that is some real 20-something industry girl stuff, not a normal use case. From what I can see, the moderation conversation is already falling out of fashion as younger people push back on optimization culture and embrace the “party girl” aesthetic once again.

American vermouth culture may be, for now, more aspiration than reality. Many of the new-wave vermouth producers may be making a product for which there is far less demand than they realize. Take Matthiasson, the pioneering winery behind new-age, organic, European-style Napa wines, which produces a vermouth from mostly a rare and obscure grape called flora, infused with homegrown botanicals. It changes with every vintage—marked not by year but by number—and costs $50 for a half bottle. It has become something of a benchmark for American sipping vermouth, and no shortage of producers have followed in its wake. But these vermouths are more at competition with natural wine than with other styles of vermouth. They’re vintage-driven, producer-specific, priced for occasion, opened like a bottle of something special and drunk slowly—and at that price and in that context, they make complete sense. The noise and the confusion come from the fact that they share a label with something that costs $12 and lives in a speed rail.

The classic vermouths—Martini and Cinzano on the low end, Dolin, Cocchi, and Carpano on the higher end—are winning the game that’s actually being played in bars across America: predictable and precise classic cocktails with low overhead and high margin. Most hover between $14 and $18 a bottle—a price point that delivers outsized value in a martini or negroni program, where a single bottle goes a long way. Most bottle shops offer half bottles too, which cost around $6 to $12 a bottle. Carpano Antica ($35/liter) or Cocchi’s excellent Vermouth di Torino Extra Dry ($26) are the exceptions.

Something unique and respectable about vermouth is that the big names have reached global scale while maintaining their provenance, quality, and reputation. Unlike, say, Barefoot in wine or Jose Cuervo in spirits, even the “worst” vermouths are good enough to mix a solid cocktail with and most pros wouldn’t sweat over it.

Nothing about this type of cocktailing vermouth is new or trendy. Jason’s first column for the Washington Post in 2007 tracks the earliest days of the modern vermouth “revival”—nearly two decades ago, before most people had heard the word craft applied to a cocktail. The previous generation of bartenders did the work. They single-handedly rescued these dusty, turned-to-vinegar vermouth bottles from the back bars and home bars of boomers, who were more interested in the other brightly, fruit-juiced drinks of the 1980s and 1990s. That restoration was completed more than a decade ago. Vermouth’s place in the cocktail canon was settled long before anyone called it a trend.

So where does that leave this new wave of artisan producers whose vermouths are too expensive for most bars to pour in a cocktail? Do I think they should concern themselves with “the market”? Well, yes and no. I do believe in the inherent value of creative experimentation and think that our late capitalist hellhole is the death of creativity. I believe in the value of making beautiful things just for the sake of enjoying the beauty. Yet, I have also watched the wine industry deal with the fallout of what happens when you stop listening to what people want in the endless pursuit of imposing one’s will upon others.

This is why the artisan world of vermouth—creative and experimental—must be separated from the vermouths operating at scale. Confusing these two worlds risks either overselling the experimental vermouth world for something more universal than it is, or judging it against a standard of mass appeal it was never trying to meet.

Back home on a Saturday evening, changed and cooled down, I tasted through the rest of my strange vermouth bounty alongside the Dolin already in my fridge. There was no clear through line between the Pennsylvania dry, the Pennsylvania-made, Spanish-style sweet, the Italian bianco, and the French blanc, which made for a lively mixing and sipping session that night. More bottles were pulled from the fridge to compare. I love how raucous and diverse the vermouth category has become. But I’m still very confused.

Seven New-Wave Vermouths

Hubba Dry ($25/375ml)

This is a single-vineyard, white-colored dry vermouth produced in Paso Robles from the verdelho grape. The nose is extremely mentholated, with undertones of mushroom, juniper, smoke, and an almost meaty finish. Dryer than a French style dry, though with the addition of anise, cardamom, and coriander it could be an interesting addition to a gin martini.

Fell to Earth Dry ($47)

Philadelphia-made with spontaneously fermented wine from Andrews Bridge, Pennsylvania, with botanicals from a low-impact farm in Lancaster County. Ripe ruby red grapefruit on the nose, mint and coriander on the mid-palate, with a mild finish where a pithy bitterness lingers. After a moment in the glass, aromas of chamomile become very apparent and the fruit becomes more fleshy. Pleasant on its own in a way that many dry vermouths are not. Would sip over rocks with a grapefruit slice and a sprig of mint. But does it work in martini?

Bordiga Bianco ($33)

Piemontese white sweet vermouth crafted from trebbiano, moscato, and cortese from the Langhe. It has a mouth coating texture, rich with orange peel, elderflower, and an array of warm spices. Aromas of cardamom, vanilla, and honeyed white flower make for a very rich vermouth. It doesn’t stand up well mixed in a spirit forward cocktail. I recommend enjoying over ice with a lemon.

Comoz Blanc ($19)

Not exactly “new wave,” but newly back in the market. Comoz is the first Vermouth de Chambery to produce a crystal-clear style, a quality that was highly prized in the mid-20th-century. Comoz didn’t survive the vermouth downturn of the 1980s, but was curiously revived by its former rival Dolin and reintroduced to the US market through importer Haus Alpenz in 2020. The flavor is semi-sweet, rich with stone fruit, alpine flowers, and herbs like tarragon and rosemary, with a pleasant undercurrent of wormwood uniting it all.

Casa Carmen ‘Tender is the Night’ ($35)

A so-called “black vermouth” from Casa Carmen, a winery located in West Grove, Pennsylvania. Bitter, nutty, and herbal. Not overly sweet or cloying. Actually quite light on the palate for a sweet vermouth. Infused with black walnuts from their farm and orange peel from Seville, this is an interesting American answer to a Spanish-style sipping vermouth.

Partida Creus MUZ ($35)

Organic Spanish vermouth made by Italian duo Massimo Marchiori and Antonella Gerona. Lighter in alcohol (13% abv) and body than most traditional Spanish vermouths, without sacrificing the rich flavors of orange peel and oregano that are so endearing about this style of vermouth to begin with. Serve over ice with an orange and olive.

Matthiasson Sweet No. 9

Late picked, semi-botrytis affected flora, muscat of alexandria, and viognier compose the base of this vermouth. The young wine is folded into the solera providing the finished vermouth a base of nutty and dried fruit flavors to balance the vibrancy of the fresh wine. Homegrown blood oranges, cardoons, wormwood, and sour cherries are infused with neutral grape brandy to fortify the vermouth and organic cane sugar added as needed to balance. The result is a sublimely layered, though-provoking sweet vermouth, highly reflective of the Matthiasson’s regenerative organic farm and garden in the Napa Valley.

Related Vermouth Content on Everyday Drinking

This whole exercise began because I got a bunch of rhubarb in my farm share box last week. I didn’t see myself baking a rhubarb pie, and so I was thinking about what to with it. As with strawberries (as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago), I’ve wondered why rhubarb isn’t used in cocktails more. So I decided to make some rhubarb s…

Read more

A few years ago, I attended a dinner at the home of a Rheingau winemaker, along with a few other journalists from Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium. It was the sort of nice-but-awkward social event that happens around wine festivals. The food and drink were lovely, as was our host, who made paella to pair with his wonderful aged riesling. The conversation w…

Read more

“Hpnotiq is back?” asked Punch, in a strange article posted this week. The answer? Maybe? “A handful of bars are reaching for the aquamarine bottles yet again,” and some are making updated versions of the Incredible Hulk, a venomous early aughts “cocktail” that combined Hpnotiq and Hennessey Cognac. Overall, not a parti…

Read more

Distiller and winemaker Laurent Cazottes pointed to a diagram on the wall of his tasting room that showed the differences between conventional, organic, and biodynamic viticulture and certifications for the latter two practices. “Eighty-five percent of wine in the world is conventio…

Read more

I would love for you to believe that I’ve always been the sort of person who enjoys pastis on a warm spring day, under a Mediterranean sky, sipping and nibbling on tapenade in between games of pétanque and drags of Gauloises cigarettes. But the reality is I’ve only come to appreciate the challenging flavors of pastis as I’ve grown older. But now that I am a pastis convert, there is no going back.

Of all the spirits, the anise-dominated ones seem to be the toughest sell to Americans. Ouzo, arak, absinthe, sambuca—not exactly top of the liquor pop chart. Even in an era when super bitter amari have risen to popularity, booze that reminds people of black jellybeans has yet to crack the zeitgeist.

I admit, I was slow to the anise spirits game, too. More than two decades ago, I dismissed the absinthe revival as a fad, and in Boozehound, I recounted the story of how a mysterious bottle of sambuca sat mostly untouched, for years, in my parent’s liquor cabinet (and how, less mysteriously, it ended up becoming the de facto shot of their teenagers).

My conversion came during research for a column on ouzo. During a tasting at José Andrés' Mediterranean restaurant, Zaytinya, the beverage director told me: “It’s one of the hardest spirits to learn to like. You love it or you hate it. Or, like me, you are learning to appreciate it.” Ouzo, like all anise-flavored spirits, was “an acquired taste.”

Is there a more backhanded compliment, a more passive-aggressive judgment, a more of kiss-of-death phrase, than “Well, I guess that’s an acquired taste”? It’s also rather centering of a certain type of American suburban taste mindset. I mean, if you grew up in another culture, black salty licorice, anchovy, sea urchin, espresso, fish sauce, huitlacoche, kimchi, vegemite, lutefisk, curry and scores of other so-called “acquired tastes” would not be acquired tastes at all. They would be innate. I grew up eating Scrapple, for god’s sake—an “acquired taste” for anyone but a person born in the Philadelphia metro area.

Anyway, my point is this: Try pastis. Open your mind. Grow up. Make peace with your childhood dislike of black jellybeans.

Pastis is amazing. The trick is how you drink it, which is to add a significant amount of cold water (around 4:1 ratio). I’m told ice is not traditional. I’m sure Francophiles will shout me down, but ice is not optional for me. As you add water, the pastis turns cloudy, milky white. In the 19th century, this emulsion of water and oils was called the louche. It is a simple preparation. It does not require housemade bitters or the Japanese hard shake or molecular mixology. I have made a video to demonstrate the louche. (Yes, that is my hairy arm.)

Because the louche was associated with absinthe, the word louche also began to mean something disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.

The most famous pastis in France are Pernod and Ricard. Pernod is the original, created after absinthe was banned in the early 20th century. Pastis was meant to be a legal alternative to absinthe that has no wormwood and a lower alcohol level. Not that pastis is low in alcohol. Most have over 40 percent alcohol by volume. My favorite is Henri Bardouin, which is 45 percent abv. This is why significant dilution with water is key. Pastis is a drink to sip over a long, lazy afternoon.

Made in Provence, Henri Bardouin is just a litle more complex and delicate than Pernod, blended with 65 herbs, including angelica, cardamom, cornflower, tonka bean, clove, nutmeg, sage, rosemary, and thyme. But honestly, it’s the taste of anise, star anise and licorice that you’re going to experience most vividly.

What I like best about pastis is that it’s a mixed drink with a classic food pairing, rare in the world of distilled spirits. In the south of France, pastis is traditionally served with tapenade, the Provençal spread made with olives, anchovies, and capers. It makes sense: Olives, anchovies, and capers may represent a trifecta of so-called “acquired tastes.” It may seem odd, but the salty, savory, pungent tapenade mingles wonderfully with the anise jolt of the pastis. Honestly, served on a toast with a little herbed goat cheese, it’s one of the most surprising and perfect pairings I know.

For the tapenade, I use David Lebovitz’s recipe that calls for black olives (I use Beldi or Niçoise but Kalamata is fine, too). Capers and anchovies are non-negotiable in tapenade—in fact, the name is derived from the Provençal word for capers, tapenas. In his book, My Paris Kitchen, Lebovitz writes, “Pastis is the classic accompaniment, although I never developed a taste for the anise-scented elixir that mysteriously turns cloudy when water is added to dilute its high-test taste and strength. I opt for chilled rosé.” Since I admire Lebovitz and his work, I’m giving him a pass on that—mainly because I know he’s made a good faith effort to acquire the taste of pastis.

All I’m asking is that you give pastis and this pairing a try. Who knows, maybe you’ll love it so much that you’ll even take up pétanque, like I have. Yes, it’s true. I now actually own a set of authentic metal pétanque balls. Maybe this is also true: I am actually an acquired taste myself.

Black Olive Tapenade

This recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbook authors, David Lebovitz, featured in his book My Paris Kitchen—even if he admits he “never developed a taste for the anise-scented elixir.” (He prefers chilled rosé)

• 1 1/2 cups black olives, pitted

• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

• 1 tablespoon capers

• 2 anchovy filets

• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• Juice of half a lemon

• 1/3 cup olive oil

In a food processor, pulse the olives, garlic, capers, anchovies, thyme, mustard, lemon to break them down. Drizzle in the olive oil and run the processer until the mixture forms a slightly chunky paste. It’s pretty salty, but if you like saltier, add salt to taste. Serve on toasts with a little herbed goat cheese. The tapenade will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

More Dips on Everyday Drinking

As I walk around New York City, I’m accustomed to seeing outrageous signs outside of restaurants, bars, and cafes. Humorous drink names, happy hour specials, and creative illustrations of beverages all constantly scream at you from outdoor blackboards, desperate pleas for you to come in. It’s not often one of these advertisements stops me in my tracks. …

Read more

Maxim, the infamous bro magazine, has ruined numerous things over the years. Some of you will soon count egg nog among those things.

But first, a confession: About a decade ago—during a strange detour in a career full of strange detours—I did a short stint writing about drinks for Maxim. Yes, I realize this puts a big dent in my feminist credentials (and…

Read more

Note: I know I said on Tuesday that there would two holiday cocktail posts. Well, I’ve since decided there should be THREE. Next week, I’ll give you my hot take on egg nog. Then, after the Christmas holiday, we’ll publish a piece on bubbly for New Year’s from Sarah Parker Jang, as well as my annual In/Out list.

Every time we have the first cold spell, I get nostalgic about winters—and also hot chocolate. As I was moving old boxes over the past few months, I came across a hand-drawn spreadsheet, created by my oldest son, Sander, when he was 12 or 13—at the time, he wrote a local food review column for his middle-school newspaper. (A memorable piece was a rant about the inauthentic churros served at school). The spreadsheet showed his ratings of various places that served hot chocolate in our small town, categorized by thickness, topping, price, “chocolate-y goodness,” and his observations on atmosphere and service.

Hot chocolate had become something of an obsession in our house. A couple of winters before that, he and I had traveled to Brussels, along with his younger brother Wes, where we spent a few days gorging on frites, mussels, and of course chocolate. During that cold trip, all of us had a sort of hot chocolate epiphany. We’d been trying ever since to create our own perfect version at home. So he brought quite the critical eye to this particular writing exercise.

My son gave up journalism as soon as he moved on to high school. He did not follow his old man into the family business. After college, he went into investment banking, sensibly steering clear of food writing, and of our media dystopia in general. But he still loves hot chocolate, and is still very discerning about it. Though, these days, he’s more likely to join me in a boozier spiked version.

Spiked hot chocolate is simple. But like all great and simple things, there is nuance and variation.

Focus first on the chocolate. Bitter or sweet? Mexican or French style? Cocoa powder or ganache? Whole milk or heavy cream? Sea salt or spices? A pinch of ancho chile? A little bit of butter? Marshmallow or whipped cream?

We’ve tested several different methods and techniques, as you’ll see in the recipes below. As a rule of thumb, I find that the more expensive, darker, higher-cocoa-percentage don’t always work best in a hot chocolate. In plenty of recipes, sweet Mexican chocolate is superior, though you have to stir really well to avoid a certain gritty texture. Also, when recipes call for cocoa powder, you’d be hard-pressed to beat old Hershey’s Natural Unsweetened.

Then, there is the matter of what to spike the chocolate with. I’ve experimented with all manner of spirits. Consulting many friends over the years, it’s interesting how often green Chartreuse, absinthe, and agave spirits pop up as suggested pairings.

Chartreuse is a no-brainer. For years, the Verte Chaud has been a popular aprés-ski drink in the French Alps, so the idea of green Chartreuse and chocolate isn’t a big shock. I even have a recipe below for Chartreuse-spiked whipped cream (hope you stocked up during the Great Chartreuse Shortage of 2023!)

Agave spirits also seem logical, considering Mexico’s hot-chocolate connection. Surprisingly, absinthe also works great. Like Chartreuse, its high proof and herbal quality balanced the thick, rich chocolate. I also love kirsch and other schnapps/eaux di vie—which as I’ve expressed many times before are a ride-or-die spirit for me.

The biggest surprise in my spiked hot chocolate experiments, however, is Branca Menta, the minty sibling of Fernet Branca (the infamous bartender’s shot). In fact, I like Branca Menta so much that we will be delving deeper into its holiday uses in the next newsletter.

In any case, I’d love to encourage you to experiment wildly with different spirits in your hot chocolate, and let me know what you like best.

Leave a comment

When I look at the spiked hot chocolate recipes below, it strikes me that two of the three bars they come from do not exist anymore. It makes me feel nostalgic for a certain era of cocktails that existed a decade ago, when we were all younger and perhaps less pretentious.

In any case, if it snows this weekend, I will toast the winter with my son, and see how these drinks stand up to his critic’s palate.

Green Lantern

Verte Chaud—green Chartreuse and hot chocolate—is a popular après ski drink in the French Alps. This boozy version, from Jim Meehan (when he was still at PDT), adds a little tequila and spice to light your lantern. It works with both the standard Ibarra Mexican chocolate, and also with the Columbia Room or Pourings Ribbons Hot Chocolate recipes below.

• 5 ounces Mexican hot chocolate

• 1½ ounces añejo tequila

• ½ ounce green Chartreuse

• 1 dash Cholula hot sauce

• Pinch dried ancho chili

Combine all ingredients in a heatproof mug. Garnish with a pinch of dried chili

Columbia Room Hot Chocolate

This may be the perfect hot chocolate to spike, created by Derek Brown at the gone-but-not-forgotten Columbia Room. Originally designed to take a shot of absinthe, you can spike it with many different spirits: Chartreuse, kirsch, spiced rum, mezcal. One of my favorites is Branca Menta, Fernet Branca’s minty cousin.

• 2 cups whole milk

• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• Pinch of salt

• 3 ounces Mexican sweet chocolate, chopped

• Spirit of choice: Chartreuse, kirsch, absinthe, spiced rum, mezcal, Branca Menta, etc.

In a saucepan, heat the milk, cocoa powder, and salt, whisking constantly to combine until the mixture comes to a boil.

Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate, whisking gently until it’s completely melted. To spike: Pour, while hot, into warm mugs, and stir in ¾ ounce of spirits. Makes 5-6 servings.

Fever Dream

This recipe came from the gone-but-not-forgotten East Village bar, Pouring Ribbons, which was once a locus for Chartreuse lovers. Like the other chocolates, it’s versatile and can be used with numerous spirits, though Chartreuse and spiced rum work really well here.

• 6 ounces Pouring Ribbons Hot Chocolate (below)

• 1 ounce spirit of your choice

• 1 dash Angostura bitters

• Dollop Chartreuse-spiked whipped cream (below)

Combine spirit and bitters in mug. Top with hot chocolate. Garnish with Chartreuse-spiked whipped cream.

Pouring Ribbons House Hot Chocolate

This recipe uses a ganache, which prevents a gritty texture and adds richness. The ganache is made using one part heavy cream and one part chopped chocolate. Bring the heavy cream to a boil and pour over chopped chocolate. Let sit for 1 minute, then gently stir until emulsified. Use a slightly sweeter dark chocolate, with around 55%-65% cacao. If you use super high-cacao dark chocolate, you may want to add a bit of simple syrup to the final cocktail.

Once you have the ganache, you can make the hot chocolate.

• 5 heaping tablespoons chocolate ganache

• 16 ounces whole milk

In a saucepan, heat milk until just below a boil, then immediately reduce heat. Add the ganache and whisk well. Pour hot into a mug, and add your preferred spirit and garnish Chartreuse-spiked whipped cream (below).

Chartreuse-Spiked Whipped Cream

Pouring Ribbons is well known for its vintage Chartreuse collection, and so spiking the whipped cream with it seems like a no-brainer. Be sure to use green Chartreuse and not yellow.

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 2 ounces green Chartreuse

• 2 ounces simple syrup

• Pinch of salt

In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, whip together all ingredients to medium peaks.

Here in the northeast, this past weekend, we had our first snowfall of the year. For once, it didn’t all melt away immediately. Yes, the temperature has remained frigidly below freezing. I know that a lot of you hate cold weather like this, but I don’t care. It’s beautiful, and I am hoping for a true winter this year.

I’ve always believed that one has to had to live through a few winters to truly enjoy and understand the sublime pleasures of the hot toddy. When cold weather like this finally rolls around, a cranky old man’s voice inside me demands that I switch from the youthful, easy-sipping drinks of summer to the more mature enjoyment of a toddy.

Over the years, “hot toddy” has become a catch-all for any sort of steaming boozy drink. At the risk of sounding like that cranky old man, a true hot toddy does not include a tea bag or a dollop of cream. And it does not call for a cinnamon stick (what is it always with the cinnamon sticks?)

The beauty of the toddy lies in its simplicity: spirit, sweetener, hot water, lemon peel. David Wondrich, in his cocktail history Imbibe, describes a toddy as “a simple drink in the same way a tripod is a simple device. Remove one leg and it cannot stand, set it up properly and it will hold the weight of the world.”

I like a ratio of 2 ounces spirit, plus ½ ounce sweetener, plus 3 ounces hot water. It’s a drink you can’t mess up. Just remember to use enough water – dilution can be your friend, embrace it. You’ll also want to remember to swirl a little hot water in the mug before you start so the cooler spirit doesn’t bring the temperature down to lukewarm.

Beyond that, there is plenty flexibility for experimentation. Will you use bourbon or rye or Islay scotch or Irish whiskey? Or how about changing up the whiskey with aged rum, Cognac, or even gin? Will you sweeten your toddy with sugar, honey, or maple syrup? Or perhaps you will use a liqueur such as Bénédictine or Chartreuse or Grand Marnier as your sweetener?

One of my favorite spirits for a toddy is Calvados, mixed with little yellow Chartreuse or a ginger liqueur or with fresh baked apples. This trio of Calvados toddies will cure just about anything.

Which brings us to the age-old question: Was your drunk old aunt right? Will a hot toddy cure the common cold? Well, yes and no. There are certainly benefits to drinking hot drinks when you have a cold, to open up the nasal passages and such. And the alcohol can’t hurt to relax you and help you sleep in the same way that Nyquil does.

But I like to think that it also cures more existential ills. For instance, as I was writing this, I started to fear I was becoming that cranky old man inside me. And that bummed me out. But once I poured myself a steaming hot toddy…well, everything was okay.

Toddy Tales: 3 Apple Variations

Recipes are for paid subscribers only. Upgrade today!

Get 20% off for 1 year

Read more

Miscommunication has been a general theme of my life this week. I am once again reminded of how much gets lost or confused in all of our disjointed texting—idle yapping and emoji-ing, oversharing and omitting. Let’s talk instead about something that seems straightforward and certain: the martini.

When you write about drinks for a living, the people in your life eventually ask you to teach them how to make a martini. Sometimes they ask you to show them a “real martini” or a “proper martini” or simply a “gin martini.” But it all means the same thing. Even though your nerdy drinks friends on social media spend a lot of time talking about Negroni variations, the normal people in your life never really ask about a Boulevardier or an Old Pal. Even if you’ve written about dozens, hundreds, of cocktails, your friends usually don’t want to hear about your favorite recipes for a Red Hook or a Greenpoint or a Bijou. And this is fine. You want the people close to you to be happy.

When someone asks me to show them how to make a martini, I know this is a way of saying “I appreciate you” or “I’d like to understand you better” or maybe it’s a way to avoid deeper conversations altogether. Often, they’d be just as happy drinking a sparkling rosé or a hard seltzer or a buttery chardonnay or a vodka iced tea or a bourbon on the rocks. But here I am, and here we are. So I mix them a martini.

The thing is, when you get down to it, a martini isn’t straightforward or certain at all. A martini so personal. I am only ever guessing at what someone else may like. I’ll start with a couple ounces of gin, and a healthy amount of dry vermouth (possibly an ounce or more), and a few dashes of orange bitters. I stir it with ice until it’s very cold.

As I stir, I remind them that this is only one way to make a martini. “If you don’t like it this way, I can make another, using less or more gin, or more or less vermouth, or a different gin or sweet vermouth…” Then I realize I’m being too solicitous, too overbearing, trying too hard. So I shut up and pour the martini into a chilled glass. I cut a lemon peel twist and squeeze it to express the oils and drop it into the drink. “We could also do olives if you’d rather…” I wait to see if it’s a wince or smile on the first sip. Do they like it or are they just being polite? It’s not an insignificant moment.

I’ve been making martinis since I was a teenager. I lived with my grandmother during summers at the Jersey Shore. She often drank a martini in the evening, sipping it as she listened to the Phillies game on the radio. Sometimes I mixed her martini, which she took very dry, always with Gordon’s gin and virtually no vermouth. I recall the same bottle of Cinzano in the bar, unrefrigerated, for the entirety of my adolescence. I’d mix it in her tall, glass martini pitcher, the one with an etching of a seagull. It was to be garnished with a minimum of six olives. With my grandmother’s martini, there was certainty.

Because it was so familiar—as so often goes in life—a martini didn’t strike me as anything special for a long time. When I was younger, I never understood the fuss over first “martini renaissance” in the late 1990s, which spawned the surprisingly persistent concept of the “martini bar.” I never got why, during the Sex and the City years, every terrible cocktail served in a V-shaped glass (Appletini, Chocolatini, et al.) needed the suffix “-tini.” I was bewildered by how much of the early 2000’s cocktail writing focused on the 19th century original story of The Martini.

More than a decade ago, I wrote columns insisting that the Manhattan was a superior cocktail to the martini (“more complex” and “more flavorful”). I was wrong. As I get older, I realize that a martini is clearly superior. I find myself making more of them these days, often in my grandmother’s martini pitcher with the etched seagull. Recently, I’ve decided I like them with more gin—more of the juniper bite—and less vermouth. Or maybe I’ve always liked them this way, but for whatever reason have always been trying something different.

I don’t exactly know what’s made me reconsider something as basic as the martini. Maybe it’s been seeing my sons and their friends “discover” the dry martini for themselves. Maybe I’m just finally willing to embrace some of life’s truths and certainties—even if it’s simply a 5:1 ratio of gin to vermouth.

I’ve often quoted H.L. Mencken’s famous assertion that the martini is “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet” and there’s certainly something poetic about it.

But by a certain age, trust me, too much poetry—frankly, too much talk, too much texting, too much communication in general—can be a recipe for disaster. Better just to focus on gin, vermouth, and bitters in the way you like it best.

The Recipes

Since the martini is so personal, why limit things to one basic recipe? You can make dozens of classic variations by simply switching the vermouth from dry to sweet, changing the gin from Londont Dry to Old Tom, or adding dashes of liqueurs such maraschino or Chartreuse. Do enough switching and suddenly you are quite far from a “martini.” What is your favorite variation?

As always, recipes are for paid subscribers only. Upgrade today at a discount!

Get 20% off for 1 year

Read more

Several years ago, I read a New York Times article that asked, “Are You an Anti-Influencer?” Apparently, based on a study of purchasing patterns at a national convenience store chain, some consumers are drawn over and over to unpopular products—Crystal Pepsi, Watermelon Oreos, Frito-Lay Lemonade, and Cheetos Lip Balm were given as examples.

“We looked in the data and saw there were some customers who were really good at picking out failures,” said one of the study’s authors, economist Catherine Tucker of MIT. Researchers called these people “harbingers of failure.” Further, they found that these harbingers cluster in similar ZIP codes (“water seeking its own level”) and even regularly donated money to political candidates who ended up losing their races. Unsurprisingly, property values in ZIP codes with lots of harbingers of failure consistently under perform the broader real-estate market.

“I think what we’re picking up on is that there are just some people who, for whatever reason, have consistently non-majority tastes,” said Tucker. “They like that odd house. That political candidate everyone else finds off-putting. They like Watermelon Oreos.”

After reading that, I suddenly felt seen—as if my entire personal and professional life was being explained to me. Maybe I am on a completely different wavelength than other consumers. I’ve spent years extolling the virtues of less popular wines and spirits. I’ve written one book on obscure booze, another about grape varieties you’ve never heard of, and finally a book about cider—which is always about to have a moment, but never does. If it confuses you or you can’t pronounce it or it’s a hopeless underdog, I’m all over it.

I’ve been thinking about my role as a “harbinger of failure” as I’ve been reading about the sad plight of Cognac. As anyone who reads this newsletter knows: No one loves brandy in general—and Cognac in particular—more than me. Few drinks writers devote more of their intellectual energy to Cognac than I do.

At the end of last year, I begged the question: “Will 2025 (Finally) Be Brandy’s Year?”

Well, I think we are getting the answer. In August, Reuters reported that Cognac sales (particularly premium Cognac sales) have declined by 13 percent. In July, Spirits Business published a piece entitled “Why Cognac is stuck in limbo land,” which noted that all of Cognac’s top brands were showing big losses this past year: Hennessy’s sales fell 14 percent; Martell plunged by 25 percent; Rémy Cointreau (owner of Rémy Martin) reported a 19 percent drop. The past two years for Rémy Cointreau has been nightmarish, with with nearly 40 percent of its revenue vanishing between 2023 and 2025.

And that’s just the big guys. As readers know, I’ve been advocating for smaller family producers and negociants for years. For me, labels like Pasquet, Grosperrin, Fanny Fougerat, Jean Fillioux, Remi Landier, Navarre, Vallein Tercinier, and others are where the real quality and energy of the region lie. But as the big Cognac companies struggle, the effects ripple through the entire ecosystem of 4,000 vine growers and hundreds of small producers.

Cognac’s situation in the U.S. market is especially dire. The four biggest brands account for about 90 percent of the Cognac consumed in the U.S., with Hennessy alone accounting for 60 percent. Meanwhile, the smaller artisan brands I write about have struggled mightily to gain traction. So if the big brands keep failing, Cognac will ultimately disappear from the American mindspace.

For those of us who remember how popular Cognac was 10 or 15 years ago, it’s hard to believe Cognac’s fall. Think, for instance, about how ubiquitous Hennessy and Courvoisier was in late 1990s and early 2000s hip-hop culture, with artists like Tupac, Busta Rhymes, and Jay-Z frequently referencing Cognac in their lyrics. But obviously culture changes.

At the end of 2024, Nicolas Palazzi, the founder of PM Spirits and one of Cognac’s biggest advocates in the U.S. posted this on LinkedIn: “I think that Cognac in the U.S. is in a dire spot.” Given that PM Spirits imports one of the finest French brandy portfolios in the U.S., that felt rather alarming. Palazzi explained his reasons:

- there are very little Cognac-based cocktails on drink menu and even less people ordering them when they exist.
- the neat Cognac drinker seems extinct
- the market for non-mega-brands is made of a very limited amount of enthusiasts, most of which coming from a whiskey background.

“In a word, Cognac has lost its cool factor,” Palazzi continued. “Sure Cognac still retains a strong image, but it has grown disconnected from who the drinker is and what she is looking for. Is there a future for a ‘Cognac category’ in the U.S.? Maybe, but it will be extremely hard to get messages to sound relatable to the potential consumer.”

Palazzi said that Cognac today reminds him of Bordeaux in the 2010s:

What was referred to as the ‘Bordeaux market’ was a lot less solid than one thought. Those top estates had true brand power but the rest of the appellation had lost its allure. Turns out Cheval had been selling ‘Cheval,’ not ‘Bordeaux.’ 15 years later, Bordeaux as an appellation has lost its appeal but a few cool winemakers who make good wines & happen to be located in the region have developed a following.

I wouldn’t be so rude as to suggest that Palazzi is an anti-influencer like me. And certainly, when I’ve published his pessimistic views of the U.S. Cognac market in the past, I’ve inevitably gotten emails from other brandy importers vehemently disagreeing.

But anyone observing the trends can see that Cognac risks sliding into obscurity and irrelevance in a U.S. spirits market increasingly dominated by whiskey, mezcal, and gin—not to mention hard seltzers, hard ice teas, and canned vodka cocktails.

Would love to hear your take on Cognac’s place in the world of spirits, circa 2025.

Leave a comment

More Cognac Content on Everyday Drinking

Before we talk about sangria, we must talk about the truth. I know that sangria conjures images of flamenco and bullfights and paella. But the reality is that Spanish people do not drink a lot of sangria. Sangria, in Spain, is mostly a drink for tourists.

To be clear, people in Spain do enjoy wine cocktails, and there is a whole universe of wine-plus-soda drinks that Spaniards love—which we will delve into below. Among them is the Calimocho (red wine mixed with Coca-Cola), the Rebujito (fino sherry mixed with 7-Up or Sprite and garnished with mint) and the Tinto de Verano (red wine mixed with 7-Up or Sprite and a squeeze of citrus). Yes, these drinks sound vaguely trashy, but trust me, they are delicious over ice on a hot day, and a good use of last night’s leftover wine.

Now, let’s talk about sangria, which was introduced to Americans at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Almost six decades later, whatever sangria you are mixed at an American bar has long detached itself from the Iberian original. At this point, let’s just consider sangria to be some kind of Anglo-American concoction, shall we? Who cares how they do it Spain, amiright?

Still, I would like to make a case for quality sangria. My issue with the drink is that it’s almost always made incorrectly. Sangria is not simply chopped fruit dumped into cheap wine and left to turn soggy.

The most dramatic example of this was at my cousin’s wedding, almost two decades ago, on a gorgeous island in Puget Sound. On the sunny afternoon of the wedding, I was relaxing on the balcony of my hotel room when my mother came running up. “I think they need your help,” she said. “Your cousin is freaking out because they’re making her sangria for the reception all wrong.”

I had just started writing my drinks column for the Washington Post, and rarely saw what I did for a living as important. But here was my mother asking me to save the cocktail hour, or at the very least my cousin’s frayed nerves. Heroes do not always wear capes.

I swaggered over to the resort bar and found what looked like fruit cup in a pitcher. I delivered a brief class on how make a proper sangria for 300 guests. I am certain the bar staff did not appreciate my intervention, but my cousin was able to go get into her wedding dress, and it all worked out fine.

I suggested the same things on that wedding day as I will suggest to you:

• True sangria should have a significant portion of brandy (or some other booze) and possibly a small amount of orange liqueur, such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier. You see a lot of recipes that replace the liqueur with simple syrup, but the liqueur will give better flavor.

• For the wine, you certainly don’t want to use your single-vineyard Barolo or gran reserva Rioja, but you also don’t want to use garbage. A value red wine that’s fruity and not oaky, but still has a little structure works best.

• For the brandy, I use Spanish brandy (aka Brandy de Jerez) such as Lepanto, Gran Duque d’Alba, or Cardenal Mendoza, because it’s generally a sweeter brandy. (You can experiment with younger Cognac or other brandies, though I might use a little more liqueur with those.)

So let’s make some sangria. We’re all tourists somewhere.

Basic Boozy Red Sangria

• 750 ml of red wine (fruity, young, not too oaky)

• 4 ounces of Brandy de Jerez

• 2 ounces of Cointreau or Grand Marnier

• 2 cups of chopped fruit (oranges, limes, grapefruits, berries, pears, peaches, etc.)

• Ice for serving

• Citrus wheels (orange, lemon, blood orange, grapefruit, etc.)

Combine all the ingredients except the ice and citrus wheels in a large pitcher and stir. Cover and let stand for 2 to 3 hours before serving or refrigerate overnight. Serve in wine glasses over ice, garnished with citrus wheels. Serves 8 to 10.

Thieves’ Punch

Still, if you really want to upgrade your wine cocktail game this summer, I’d like to suggest another sangria-like punch that is one of my go-to, easy-to-make pitcher drinks for a party. The Thieves’ Punch swaps out red wine for port and brandy for rum and it’s a flat-out crowd pleaser (particular if your crowd is a little boozier, as mine is).

Thieves’ Punch was created by my friend Duggan McDonnell, a (legendary? infamous?) San Francisco bartender. His original recipe calls for white rum, but I like to use cachaça (rum’s Brazilian cousin) because it’s funkier and sharper and stands up to the other strong flavors. If you use rum, I suggest a rhum agricole, made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice. The simple syrup is slightly variable according to your taste and what sort of cachaça/rum you’re using—taste as you stir and add accordingly. This recipe calls for an eyebrow-raising amount of bitters, but don’t skimp on them: They keep things balanced.

• 16 ounces cachaça (or white rum)

• 5 ounces port (ruby or tawny)

• 10 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice (from about 5 limes)

• 3-4 ounces simple syrup

• 20 dashes Angostura bitters

• 1 cup ice, plus more for serving

• Lime wedges

Combine the rum, port, lime juice, simple syrup, and bitters in a large pitcher. Add the cup of ice, then stir vigorously. Strain into ice-filled old-fashioned or small wine glasses. Garnish with lime wedge. Serves 8.

The Art of Wine + Soda

Since we’ve discussed sangria, we should also talk about the kinds of casual wine-plus-soda cocktails that people in Spain actually drink. I have praised this kind of lazy bartending before. But In Spain, they take it to another level.

These wine-plus-soda cocktails are all ridiculously simple to make, but they also give a template for creating drinks that could potentially (maybe?) be (slightly?) more creative and complex. In an effort to make them a little more classy, I’m tapping my old friend Oscar Díez, a Spanish winemaker and bartender, to add his take on the classic wine-plus-soda cocktails.

Oscar is based in Toro, a small town in Castilla y León, where his winery Bodegas Díez Gómez produces tempranillo and verdejo (I particularly like his barrel-fermented verdejo). Before took over his family’s vineyards, though, Oscar ran a bar called Discoteca Q in Toro (which at that time was a town of 10,000 with 100 bars!) and won numerous bartending awards, including one for “Best Gin Tonic in Spain,” noteworthy in a country that has elevated this drink to an art form.

Even as a winemaker, Oscar is committed to what he calls “Wine Mixology,” using wine in building cocktails. Each of his wines actually has a cocktail recipe on the label. When I saw him in May at a wine fair, Oscar was mixing up a variation on a mojito with verdejo wine, and a crazy cocktail made with gin, raspberry syrup, lime juice, his big Tinta de Toro (aka tempranillo), garnished with a sprig of rosemary. What follows here are Oscar’s twists on three classic wine-plus-soda cocktails.

Recipes are for paid subscribers only. Upgrade today at a discount!

Get 20% off for 1 year

Read more

Last week, in case you missed it, I posted a lil rant about big brands co-opting cocktail culture, spirits media, and how main character energy is killing artisan spirits. As I wrote:

But with bartending—particularly at the high end, where some people call it “mixology”—things get a whole lot murkier. With cocktails, the focus is much more on the bartend…

Read more

Wine media certainly comes in for a lot of criticism. We’ve covered the many ways it can be embarrassing, joyless, insufferably boring, corrupt, or worse. There’s an awful lot of hand wringing over the state of wine content and influencing and sommeliering. Meanwhile—over at the louder, flashier …

Read more

Will the fern bar ever have its revival? Will we ever see trendy bars created to look like the Regal Beagle, Jack Tripper's swinging hangout in the 1970s sitcom Three's Company? I mean, why not? We've already lived through the speakeasy reviva…

Read more

So how does tariff whiplash feel?

The drama certainly continues to evolve. Yesterday, the European Union dropped plans to slap American bourbon with retaliatory tariffs. The drinks industry has been nervously waiting to see if the EU would levy a bourbon tariff—since Donald Trump threatened to hit back with a 200 percent retaliation tariff on European wine and spirits if they did. The EU, apparently, blinked.

Today (literally less than 2 hours ago) Trump announced that he’s paused his reciprocal tariffs on most countries for 90 days, implementing a universal tariff of only 10 percent (down from 20 percent). My hope is that this will give importers enough time to make some large orders from their European suppliers, get them on the water, through customs, and into the U.S. market before any more madness happens.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about what I’m personally going to be stockpiling personally. I’m no economist (I got a C+ in macroeconomics back in college) but priority one feels straightforward: stock up on name-brand, legacy spirits. I’m talking about stuff like Cointreau, Campari, Aperol, my favorite amari and vermouth—the staples of a home bar.

I’m not saying that a future tariff won’t hit European wines hard (it will). But for the consumer, you will likely have some options, and we can take a breath. For instance, if you love Sancerre, you could look for wines from another less-known region that makes sauvignon blanc—say, from appellations like Menetou-Salon or Touraine—which will likely be lower in price. If your favorite Burgundy pinot noir gets too expensive, you could try lesser-known grapes like Austrian blaufränkisch or Portuguese baga. For the moment, the hunt for value in wine will remain similar to what it’s always been.

But with the spirits, it’s a different story. We saw this a couple of years ago, during the infamous Chartreuse Crisis—when the Carthusian monks decided to limit production of their liqueur. When a popular spirit becomes scarce, people start panic buying.

The reason why is pretty simple: If you enjoy Charteuse, or cocktails that use Chartreuse, you don’t have a lot of alternative options. Likewise, if you love a Negroni or an Aperol Spritz, you’re not going to get far without Campari or Aperol. If you like Cointreau in your Margaritas—or your Sidecars, your Cosmopolitans, your White Ladys, your Mai Tais, your El Presidentes, et al.—you’re probably not going to switch to another brand of orange liqueur. (Though I might recommend that Combier would be a fine substitute).

I talked about this phenomenon of secondary and tertiary liqueurs in my dispatch from Bar Convent Brooklyn a couple of summers ago:

I’m not as worried about base spirits like British gin or Jamaican rum. The proposed tariff on those countries is smaller, and there are options. For instance, with gin, you have some good quality domestic alternatives, from distilleries such as Isolation Proof, St. George Spirits, or Bluecoat.

Several of my friends told me over the weekend they’d been low-key hoarding liqueurs. One friend, who loves Sidecars and Paper Plane cocktails, actually drove to a liquor store in tax-free Delaware and bought several 1.75-liter bottles of Cointreau, and multiples of Aperol and Amaro Nonino. A spirit like Amaro Nonino, already sitting at around $50, seems like the kind of product that’s vulnerable to the tariff. For a lot of spirits, I’m wondering what price increase is finally a step too far for consumers.

So, now that the tariffs are paused for 90 days, I'm not saying it's time to start panic buying Cointreau and Campari, but I'm also not not saying that. Who knows what the whims of our president will be tomorrow, let alone 90 days from now.

To that end, for my paid subscribers, what follows below is my list of home-bar staples you should (calmly) stockpile.

Get 30% off for 1 year

Read more

When they’re ripe and juicy, apricots are undoubtedly among my favorite fruits. But the truth is, apricots are also among the most frustrating, inconsistent fruits. I’ll eat four mealy, blah ones, only to have a single, mind-blowingly delicious one, which then forces me to endure the next four mealy ones.

Apricot brandy is sort of the same experience. Or should I say apricot “brandy” in quotes. For years, it occupied a dusty corner of the liquor store that I avoided. It confounded me. Most of it wasn’t even brandy, and most of it was awful: cloying and full of artificial flavoring and coloring.

For me, apricot “brandy” has always brought bad associations; it seemed to be the sort of thing you bought in pints and drank out of little paper bags. As a teenager, I remember classmates buying pints of Jacquin’s Apricot Flavored Brandy for illegal parties in the woods. Later, I had a friend who ordered apricot sours, and I was always vaguely embarrassed when she did that, particularly in dive bars.

As it happens, I had good reason to be skeptical about apricot brandy. Even the best bottles that bartenders use—say, Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot from Austria or Luxardo Albicocca from Italy—are actually liqueurs, not technically brandies. You’ll rarely find a bottle of the stuff, good or bad, that’s higher than 60 proof. Because of that, apricot brandy will not work well as a base spirit in a cocktail.

And yet. Something about apricot brandy has appealed to generations of cocktail makers. Just look in classic cocktail guides such as The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) or Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual (1934), and you’ll find plenty of recipes calling for the spirit. Over the years, I’ve talked to so many top bartenders who embrace apricot brandy that it frankly surprises me.

You see apricot brandy popping up in gin cocktails, rye cocktails, bourbon cocktails, pisco cocktails, even absinthe/Chartreuse cocktails such as the Yellow Parrot. It seemed to be used wherever people enjoyed cocktails. In pre-Prohibition New York, you had a gin cocktail called the Frankenjack (equal parts gin, vermouth, Cointreau, apricot brandy) and its more popular variation, the Darb. Further south, you had the Baltimore Bang, a tasty mix of bourbon, apricot brandy, and lemon juice: an apricot-y whiskey sour. Further south, in Havana, you had the Nacional, which combined rum, apricot brandy, and lime juice.

So with apricot season soon upon us, I decided to explore apricot brandy a little bit, sipping and making cocktails. Mostly, I’ve been pleasantly surprised and excited by what I’ve found.

First, Let’s Talk About Real Apricot Brandy

You’ll only find a few that are actual fruit brandies (aka schnapps or eaux de vie) actually distilled from apricots. And the best of those are quite pricey. For me, greatest apricot brandy comes from Rochelt, in the Tyrolean Alps, made from special apricots from Austria’s Wachau region. Aged seven years in glass balloons, it’s hard to explain just how ethereal, complex, and beautiful this spirit is—one of my favorites in the world. Rochelt Wachau Apricot, however, will set you back about $400 for 375 ml. My second choice is also from Austria, and also amazing: Han Reisetbauer Apricot Eau de Vie, which is around $80 for 375 ml.

The most widely available true apricot brandy is Blume Marillen Apricot Eau-De-Vie from Purkhart distillery, which is also in Austria (are we detecting a theme: the Austrians know how to distill apricot brandy) and imported by Haus Alpenz. Blume Marillen Apricot Eau-De-Vie is the most affordable, at under $40 for 375 ml., and a great introduction to the pleasures of real fruit brandy.

A rare domestic apricot brandy that I like is Öömrang Apricot Brandy, which comes from Washington state and is surprisingly good, and a good deal at around $45.

All of these eau de vie I enjoy neat, the same way I’d sip a Cognac or aged rum after dinner—or like other clear fruit brandies such as kirschwasser or poire Williams. I will continue to make the case for these amazing spirits until my last breath.

Apricot “Brandy” For Mixing

For cocktails, we’ll be talking about the apricot liqueurs that people call “apricot brandy.” For me, the best brand is Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot (also made by Purkhart), which you can find for around $20. I also like Luxardo Albicocca ($25) and Giffard Abricot du Roussillon ($30). In a pinch, Marie Brizard Apry also works.

I do not recommend sipping those on their own. They’re cloying, like drinking apricot jam without the toast. But in a cocktail, I have to admit they bring something to the table that no other liqueur does—an odd, rich, not-too-sweet sweetness. Just be warned: a little goes a long way.

Another word to the wise: Apricot is one category where you probably don’t want to venture too far from the top shelf. The other apricot brandies I tasted — from Hiram Walker, Bols, and Jacquin’s—probably should remain in that dusty corner.

Still, flipping through those old books, I can’t discern that there ever were halcyon days of apricot “brandy.” Mostly the same brands pop up then as now. Perhaps apricot brandy has always confounded. And, likewise, perhaps it has always pleasantly surprised.

Four Apricot-Kissed Cocktails

Recipes below are for paid subscribers only. Upgrade now so you don’t miss my weekly recommendations. Right now, I’m offering a discount!

Get 30% off for 1 year

Read more