There are hundreds of flavored wines made in Europe, originally for reasons of health and good digestion.
Over the centuries vermouth has gone by dozens of names: vermouth, vermouth, vermouth, vermut, wermut, wormwood wine, easel, alsem wijn, vin d’absinthe, vino de axenjo, vino d’assenzio and so on.
The term ‘vermouth’ is derived from the German word for wormwood Wermut. It is supposedly derived from Wer (man) and Mut (courage, spirit, manhood).
According to The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, the word ‘vermouth’ was first printed in 1806.
Archeological evidence showed that during Shang and Western Zhou dynasties (1250-1000 BC), herbs were clearly part of an already highly specialized medicinal wine ‘industry.’
Although the Greek physician Hippocrates is credited, around 400 BC, with infusing wormwood into the white wine- creating vinum absinthianum or Hippocrates wine – it was Pliny the Elder who provided a specific formula.
Commercial production of vermouth did not begin until the eighteenth century. The wine was first produced in Italy by infusing it with wormwood, presumably to enhance the taste of sour or uncompromising wine with the flavors of a variety of sweeteners, spices, herbs, roots, seeds, flowers and peels.
This vermouth, red and sweet was appropriately named ‘Italian’.
History of vermouth wine
