Sealights – Casa Eva Vermut
Vermouth slowly, but steadily replaces gin as the new “it” drink. My friend Stefan Winterling decided to also have a go at it with local ingredients from Mallorca. I already tried his Vermut at the distillery during our summer vacation and really enjoyed it. Now, I also created an easy summer sipper inspired by the classic Gin & It cocktail.
First, here is a quick recap of the Casa Eva vermouth’s production methods. Stefan bases his vermouth on a Binnigrau wine. For the flavouring he uses macerated wormwood and gentian as the bittering agents. In addition, Stefan enhances the wine’s flavour profile by adding distilled spirits when fortifying the wine. These include carob, olive, orange, pine, rosemary and thyme eau de vies. In the end, the Vermut has an ABV of 17 %.
Modern Spanish style
As mentioned in the article about the distillery visit, for me the Casa Eva Vermut successfully combines traditional Spanish vermouth flavours with more balanced and modern aspects. The base wine comes off as very fresh, with a fruity character. Apart from that you can really taste the individual ingredients, such as of wormwood, gentian, thyme and oranges. The sweetness is noticeable, but kept in check by the bitterness. My freshly opened bottle tastes a slightly more bitter than the opened one we tried on Mallorca.
Gin & It variation
For a drink I wanted to keep things simple and base the whole thing on the Gin & It. Obviously, I had to rename the darn drink, because the “It” stands for Italian vermouth. I used the Gin Eva L’Mallorquina for the gin, because its olive notes can also be found in the vermouth. On top of that, the finishing touches were a few drops of saline solution, optional bitters (Gin & It Bitters in my case) as well as some homemade orange and pepper olives on the side.
3 cl Casa Eva Vermouth
(2 Sprays The Seventh Sense Gin & It Bitters)
Built – Old-Fashioned glass over ice cubes;
Garnish: Orange Wedge, Olives on the side
Song: The Gardener & The Tree – Sealights;
Yes, the eponymous song is a bit sentimental, but I quite liked the “sea theme” which goes well with the whole Mediterranean vibe of Gin Eva. Apart from that, I found it interesting to see how the combination of the gin and the vermouth brought out the olive flavours. Apart from that, the Sealights also had some mouthwatering bitterness to it. These make it the perfect Aperitif on a hot summers day.
*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. I received the vermouth for free from Casa Eva.
