If you haven’t tried Carpano Antica yet, please do so. And if you haven’t tried it on its own you have to. Yes, I just told you to sip on a glass of ver­mouth. Trust me. There’s noth­ing quite like it. You can def­i­nitely drink this over ice (larger cubes) like an aperitif.

This Ital­ian sweet ver­mouth was cre­ated by Anto­nio Benedetto Carpano. Anto­nio is reported to be the god­fa­ther of ver­mouth and Carpano Antica is the orig­i­nal recipe that dates back to 1786. Even The label is an endur­ing replica of the 1786 orig­i­nal. Anto­nio gave birth to the title ver­mouth, named after the Ger­man wine using worm­wood (Wer­mut). Ver­mouth was ini­tially cre­ated to fla­vor wines of poor qual­ity, which lead to its reputed med­i­c­i­nal val­ues of cur­ing diges­tive ail­ments. This sweet ver­mouth is an aro­m­a­tized Ital­ian style wine prod­uct. The orig­i­nal recipe was cre­ated from white wine with the infu­sion of over 30 vari­eties of herbs and spices. With that said let’s get to my tast­ing notes. Good luck, right?

You’ll notice upon pour­ing your first glass the col­or­ing is of caramelized sugar, a brown­ish orange. It’s rather thick. If you swirl it around your glass it’ll leave long legs. The nose bursts with vanilla, clove, figs, orange peel and pos­si­bly a touch of tof­fee. It’s a very com­plex whiff, as there are other inde­scrib­ables. The sip test reveals orange peel and dried fruit right up front. The mid-palette is bit­ter, prob­a­bly from the worm­wood and orange peel (almost like a tonic). Finally, it leaves you with a fan­tas­ti­cally clean fin­ish of tof­fee, vanilla and caramel. It’s a very intense and well rounded expe­ri­ence and one that every­one should expe­ri­ence for themselves.

This is the best ver­mouth one can buy. You’re def­i­nitely going to want to vac­uum seal and refrig­er­ate your bot­tle. I know I just told you this is a sweet ver­mouth, but be care­ful sub­sti­tut­ing this in recipes that call for sweet ver­mouth. It’s not that sweet. It’s bit­ter. I’d use this in a Man­hat­tan, Bobby Burns or a Vieux Carré. All this talk has me crav­ing a cock­tail with Carpano Antica. I think I’ll make myself a Man­hat­tan right now. Drink like kings, my friends. Pinky out.

Bot­tles around $30.