Bad vermouth taste

[TAPrice]

I've got a bottle of dry Noilly Prat vermouth. For some reason, it has a finish that tastes like hydrogen peroxide. This comes through when I drink it straight and in cocktails, although it dissipates after the first few sips of a cocktail.

The bottle was bought recently (within the last 3 months), but initially I stored in on the shelf and not in the fridge. At the time, I didn't know any better.

Has the vermouth gone bad? Or do I have some odd sensitivity to vermouth? Or maybe I'm just crazy.

[Tess]

I'd love to hear the answer to this. Vermouth often tastes strange to me too. It's imporved since I get small bottles and try to use them right up, but it's still a problem.

[TAPrice]

Tess,

Is the off taste similar to what I'm tasting, or is it something different?

[johnder]

Just because you bought the bottle recently doesn't mean it is a fresh bottle. Granted a closed bottle will keep, but depending on where it was in the liquor store (exposed to sunlight, under a A/C duct, etc) it could have taken its toll on it.

At the vermouth tasting at tales of the cocktail we opened a brand new bottle of M&R sweet and all had a taste. They purposely left the bottle open during the talk and after an hour gave us all another taste of the same vermouth that has been exposed to air.

There was a remarkable difference in taste between the two just with one hour of oxidation. Vermouth is an extremely finicky spirit and sweet vermouth especially can turn dramatically.

It sounds like you got a bottle that has been put through the ringer before you got it, so I would ditch it. The best bet with vermouth is get the smallest bottle you can, ditch the screw top and get a set of the vacuum seals used for wine with the hand pump to evacuate the air and store them in the fridge.

john

[TAPrice]

Thanks John. I've only recently learned to treat vermouth like wine, but it's still not clear to me what off vermouth tastes like. I've never found a peroxide flavor in wine. Would other off flavors of vermouth be similar to those in a old bottle of wine? I'm assuming the signs of bad sweet and dry vermouth are different.

[TAPrice]

Things are much better. I bought a (small) bottle of Martini and Rossi. It tastes just fine. Now it will go straight into the fridge.