Blind Tasting: Fresh Vermouth vs. 2.5 Year Old Vermouth / Explorations Series ─ Common Man Cocktails

Let's do a blind tasting with fresh vermouth vs. a 2.5 year old bottle of vermouth. The Brand? Carpano Antica, we've had our bottle of Carpano Antica for over two-and-a-half years. We were worried it was going to throw off the flavor profile of a cocktail.

So, we bought a brand new bottle of Carpano Antica fresh from the store never been opened and we want to blind taste compare and see if we can tell the difference.

Does Vermouth go bad? Here is another video we did on the topic:
https://youtu.be/BLSly9OcpRk

Oddly enough, what we experience may be either our inexperienced "vermouth palate" not detecting the subtle differences or, perhaps, as it turns out, your vermouth age isn't as important as you thought it was after all.

We have been told that vermouth lasts about 8 months if you condition it right (put it in the fridge) before it goes "bad." Of course, "bad" is just a state of taste... your carpano antica isn't going to murder your soul on month 9.

That being said, what we have discovered here is that perhaps an older bottle of vermouth has more character than its younger siblings. Maybe it needs to "breathe" for a bit longer or just have aged conditions to get out some of the more flavorful tidbits?

I didn't think we'd prefer, in a blind tasting, the older bottle, and consider the new one to taste not as "fresh." But, wine is a funny thing sometimes, age and oxidation does indeed make it better.

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