Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Straight of Vermouth!

I assure you, the name is purely a coincidence.

Not as strong as some might want, granted, but quite refreshing.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Okay, you chuckleheads, you asked for it, and I’m delivering. Let’s make a bittersweet, refreshing low ABV sipper for warming weather, something perfect for late spring in 2026. Time for a Straight of Vermouth. Here’s the recipe.

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Straight of Vermouth

1 ½ oz Orange-infused Aperol

½ oz Carpano Dry Vermouth

¼ oz lemon juice

Fevertree club soda

Open the bottle of Aperol. Pour 1 1/2 oz of Aperol into a chilled Collins glass. Close the bottle of Aperol.

Open the bottle of vermouth. Pour ½ oz of vermouth into the glass. Close the bottle of vermouth.

Add lemon juice and soda. Stir gently. Sip well.

Orange-infused Aperol

3 oranges

750 ml Aperol (1 bottle)

Peel the oranges, retaining as little white pith as possible. Add the orange peels to the Aperol. Let rest in a cool, dark place for one week. Strain and keep in a cool place.

Ever since mankind began making wine, we’ve added things to it to make it taste better. Wormwood has been part of the recipe, on and off, for most of that history. Bad wine is often too sweet; a bittering agent like wormwood can balance out the sweetness and give the wine some bite. Vermouth as we know it was created by Antonio Beneditto Carpano in 1786; he decided to use some decent wine instead of cheap swill, balance out the herbs properly, and sell the wormwood wine — or “Wermut” — to the Germans. It became the darling of the Savoy aristocracy, who spoke French and translated the word to “Vermouth.” (Fun fact: In Swedish, “Wermut” translates to “Malort.” Ponder the implications at your leisure.)

I cannot emphasize this enough: Vermouth is not liquor. It is not meant to be stored at room temperature. Put it in the fridge, or it gets stale and nasty. America has rejected properly made martinis for decades because bad bars neglect their vermouth. A properly made martini is made with vermouth. Try fresh vermouth in your cocktails. You’ll enjoy it.

This particular cocktail is a riff on the Americano, an Italian drink that’s been popular with American tourists since 1860. It’s also the antecedent of the Negroni, a favorite cocktail of mine. Count Negroni replaced the soda water with gin for his namesake drink, and the world has never been the same.

There are several fortified wines out there that play differently from ordinary vermouth. Suze, Cocci Americano, and Lillet Blanc all come to mind; none of them use wormwood as a primary ingredient. I’d heartily recommend experimenting with these to build your own version of the cocktail. “The Strait of Suze” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, sadly.

Swapping the Campari for Aperol in this glass brings it fairly close to an Aperol spritz, a truly glorious summer cocktail. As much as I love spritzes, I do find them a bit sweet at times. The dry vermouth definitely adds a bittersweet note here, making it a more grown-up drink than a normal spritz.

No matter the cocktail’s roots, the drink is great for when you need to spend a leisurely afternoon ignoring your phone and soaking up the sunshine. Take life’s pleasures where you can find them.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. Heck of a lot easier to manage than a naval blockade, let me tell you.

Orange-infused Aperol: I had this ingredient hanging out in my liquor cabinet after my 216 Tiger Soda project. It seemed a waste not to use it again for the summer. By all means, use off-the-shelf Aperol for this cocktail if you don’t want to wait a week. If you are an Aperol spritz fan, however, I would highly recommend making the orange-infused stuff. It’s a serious treat.

Dry vermouth: Sweet vermouth is a solid choice here, but I found it a touch too jammy and thick for a summer cocktail. Dry vermouth cuts through the Aperol and provides a bitter backbone for a drink that would otherwise resemble an alcoholic Jarrito. If you’re sensitized to the taste of wormwood, you can pick it out in the finish of the cocktail. I’ve done far, far too many Malort shots at Hemingway’s not to notice it. Lord help me, I’m beginning to like it.

Lemon juice: ¼ ounce is optimistic. Squeeze a lemon wedge over the cocktail and you’ll be fine.

Fevertree Club Soda: I own a Sodastream, and it does the job, but Fevertree club soda has a touch of salt that makes the other flavors in the cocktail pop. Use your soda water or club soda of choice. Ideally, keep it in the fridge — it’s more effervescent that way.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!