Turin - Where is The Vermouth? (2016 Update)

On my third trip to Turin, in October 2016, I was still wrestling with a now familiar question - where is all the vermouth? 

It is something of a mystery.

Turin is the birthplace of vermouth. The resurgence of interest in cocktails in recent years, and particularly the popularity of classics like the Negroni, have surely helped vermouth get beyond the rather naff image it was tarred with in the latter part of the 20th Century (yes I'm looking at you, Cinzano).

Given how cities in Italy normally so outwardly celebrate their regional specialities, you could be forgiven for arriving in Turin, as I did the first time I came, and expecting a bit more a fanfare around vermouth. Where is the vermouth museum? The vermouth factory tours? Where are the shops and bars specialising solely in vermouth? Why are the piazzas not filled with Torinese drinking vermouth of an early evening?

Part of the answer may lie in the fact Turin just isn't a very tourist focused city. That is, of course, part of its charm. The few tourists that do come here are mostly Italian, perhaps a few French people popping across the border, but very few indeed from further afield. Certainly nothing like the hordes you'd encounter in Rome, Florence or Venice.

Also it seems a lot of international (by which I suppose I largely mean American) food and drink trends tend to just wash over the Italians. Even when - as they often seem to - they're based on something originating in Italy. This is true of both coffee and cocktails. Italy has had espresso and Negronis for decades. They don't seem to feel the need that fashionable bartenders and baristas in London and New York have to tweak and iterate on these things. Big name coffee brands do just fine for the vast majority of the people of Italy in just the same way that a bog standard Negroni using a bog standard vermouth like Martini Rosso is pretty much all you'll ever find anywhere. Even in Turin. I think without that boost in interest from trendy mixologists vermouth has remained very much a minority interest here.

That said, the good news is that small scale "artisanal" production of food and drink in Italy never really died out as it mostly did in Britain and America. I had hoped to find hundreds of small producers of vermouth in and around Turin. There doesn't seem to be a definitive list anywhere, which makes the search all the more interesting. I don't think there can be as many as a hundred in existence, but it certainly gets into double figures.

Here's a few highlights in terms of vermouth for places I visited on my October 2016 trip.

Caffe Mulassano

On this trip we stayed in an apartment almost directly above this wonderful little historic cafe, so it became our local, and I visited almost every day over the course of the week. They produce their own vermouth - more details here.

Da Marco

This was an entirely serendipitous find from my 2016 trip, which we just happened to walk past on the way to the market. Even from the outside you get an immediate sense of what an Aladdin's cave of Italian drinks this is.

 

Caffetteria Vermoutheria Barolino Cocchi

I was very intrigued to visit a "vermoutheria" - which is presumably to vermouth what a pizzeria is to pizza. However I found their opening hours a bit of a challenge (it appeared they only opened in the daytime?) and the only time I was able to get here during the trip it was late morning, so for me at least not really the time of day for vermouth! As the name suggests they specialise in vermouths from Cocchi.

Pasticceria Abrate

Although pasticceria suggests an Italian patisserie, there seems to be a fair amount of overlap between bars, cafes (and therefore patisseries) so don't let the name mislead you - this is actually a very nice place to go for a drink in the evening. They offered a vermouth sampling board, including various Carpano and Del Professore vermouths.

Antica Enoteca del Borgo

Half wine shop, half wine bar, with a good selection of vermouths.