Sweet Vermouth

Vermouth the French for German Wermut, Wormwood in English, is an aromatic fortified Wine, flavoured with various botanicals like roots, barks, flowers, herbs, seeds and spices.

Although traditionally Vermouth was used for medicinal purposes, it has been also served as an apéritif in its modern avatar. The modern Vermouth first appeared in and around the 18th Century in Turin. By the late 19th Century it became very popular with bartenders as a key ingredient in cocktail mixology.

Martini, Manhattan, Rob Roy and Negroni were a few cocktails that Vermouth grew in popularity with. But later during the 20th Century, Vermouth slowly lost its glory and Dry Martinis and extra Dry Martinis with little or no Vermouth gained over the original Martini. Modern Martinis usually have a splash of Vermouth to add that herbacious texture to it.

Historically, there have been two Vermouth types, Dry and Sweet, but with demand variations have come up now. that include extra-dry white, sweet white, red, amber and rose.

Vermouth is produced by adding proprietory mixture of aromatic botanicals to a base wine or a base wine plus spirit or spirit only, which is usually redistilled before adding it to a base of neutral grape wine or unfermented wine must ( freshly pressed grapes and the juice ). After the wine is aromatised and fortified. it is sweetened and the end product is a Vermouth.

Dry Vermouth is what makes the character of the original Martini, and a Dry Vermouth has less sugar and is more herbacious but less spicier than Sweet Vermouth.

Gin

Gin is a distilled alcoholic beverage that has it's origin in medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe. The historical Gin producing regions are Southern France, Flanders and Netherlands. Gin was originally created to provide aqua vitae from grape and grain distillates.

During the Middle ages, the newly found substance Ethanol was considered by Alchemists to be the water of life, and an aqueous solution of ethanol was in use all over Europe and had different names and is literally the origin of many spirits like Whisky ( from the Gaelic uisce beatha for water of life ). Today Gin is produces from a wide range of ingredients, which gave rise to numerous distinct styles and brands. The predominant flavour of Gin is from the Juniper berries and then each different distillery flavours it further with an assortment of botanicas or herbs, spices, floral and fruit flavours, in different combinations. Gin is commonly drank mixed with Tonic water but it is also often used as a base spirit for many gin based flavoured liqueurs like Sloe Gin.

Green Chartreuse

If there is any liqueur shrouded in mystery and steeped in history of European medieval culture of alcoholic medicine making, be it eau de vie or uisce beatha, the history of the monks of different orders who spent their time in identifying herbs and their benefits, Chartreuse would be the forerunner.

Chartreuse gets its name after the monks of the Carthusian Order head quartered in Grande Chartreuse monastery, located in the Chartreuse Mountains in Grenoble, France. It is a distilled alcohol aged with 130 herbs, plants and flowers, with a recipe that's to this day, a closely kept secret that only two monks can know, at any given time. These are the monks that mix the botanicals.

The recipe of this Elixir Vegetal was presented to Carthusian monks by François Hannibal d'Estrées, a marshall of artillery, during French King Henry IV, in 1605. Since then, through ups and downs, exiles and returns, the monks have held to their secret tightly and once were producing Chartreuse in exile from Spain.

After their exile in 1793 the Carthusian monks returned to France in 1816, and the manuscript to the elixir that was secretly passed on when the monks carrying it were arrested, were passed on back to them, they started producing Chartreus from the Monastry.

They were exiled again in 1903 and they took refuge in Tarragona, Catalonia and the monks started producing it with the label Liqueur fabriquée à Tarragone par les Pères Chartreux, until their return to France and regaining control of the distillery at the Monastry a few decades later.

Orange Bitters

Orange Bitters are traditionally the zest of Seville Oranges mixed with other spices such as cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, caraway seeds, coriander seeds, anise and burnt sugar in an alcohol base.
Note that Orange Bitters are not to be confused with Angostura Aromatic Bitters, although the House of Angostura produces an Orange Bitters brand too.

Cherry

Although the name is Brandy, Cherry Brandy is not a Brandy since Brandy is produced by distillation of wine, pomace or fruit mash, where as Cherry Brandy is produced by macerating cherries in neutral spirit, Vodka to be specific in it's case, it is not even macerated in any Brandy, so technically it is not a Brandy and it doesn't contain Brandy either, although some brands might add some Brandy but that's not a legal requirement. Cherry Brandy is a liqueur, and thus it is also known as Cherry Brandy Liqueur.

Cherry Brandy Liqueur is usually flavoured using spices such as cinnamon and cloves. One distinctive speciality of distillation of the cherry infused spirit is that the pot still for distillation has to be copper instead of stainless steel, copper helps produce a smoother distillate and most importantly removes the cyanide produced when cherries are distilled

Cherry Liqueur is a sweetened liqueur made from different spirit bases of which Brandy is the most common base for macerating and infusing cherry and making the liqueur, and that is why cherry liqueur is often called Cherry Brandy.

Note that there's Kirsch or Kirschwasser, an unsweetened eau de vie distilled from cherries, and it is often called cherry brandy too. But you can't use Kirsch and Cherry Liqueur interchangeably since the liqueur is sweet and the other is not.

One of the most known Cherry Liqueur is Maraschino Cherry Liqueur, made from Marasca cherries.

Cherry Mix is a mix of different dried cherries like Bing Cherries and Tart Cherries, sweetened and if store bought, will have preservatives added for shelf life. In Europe, specially in Italy, specific cocktail cherry cultivars are in use, cherries like Morello and Montmorency are the traditional choices, and Marasca, a Morello variety grown in Italy is popular world over as the Maraschino Cherry Mix.

Maraschino Cherries are preserved, sweetened cherry, typically light coloured cherries like Royal Ann, Rainier and Gold varieties are used. Maraschino Cherries are used in many cocktails and Tequila Sunrise and Queen Mary are too bright examples.
The name Maraschino originates from the marasca cherry of the Dalmatian region, Maraschino Liqueur is made from it, and the marasca cherries that were macerated to create the pre-distillation liquor, were pickled and preserved for use, the steeping in spirit helped in the preservation, and since the production of these cherries and their alcohol pickle was scarce, the Maraschino Cherry, as they were known in Croatia because of it's origin in the Maraschino Liqueur making process, became a delicacy of the royalty and the wealthy across Europe.
Due to scarcity of the Marasca Cherry the Maraschino pickled cherry soon no more just Marasca cherries, other cherries were preserved in the same method and were sold as "Maraschino Cherry".
In USA, in 1912, the USDA defined Maraschino Cherries as Marasca cherries preserved in Maraschino Liqueur, but since Prohibition from 1920, alcohol preserved cherries fell out of preference and regulations prevented cherries from being pickled in alcohol too, and different brining methods were invented that produced pickled cherries that were far from the Maraschino Cherry that they claimed to be.
Most modern versions of Maraschino Cherries have little or no alcohol, and since post prohibition, under the pressure from the non-alcoholic preserved cherry industry, the FDA redefined Maraschino Cherries as "cherries which have been dyed red, impregnated with sugar, and packed in a sugar syrup flavored with oil of bitter almonds or a similar flavor" since 1940.

Cherry Juice is a fruit juice as obvious from the name, and it is marketed as a health supplement. It is produced by hot or cold pressing cherries, and then filtering and pasteurising it.
In alcoholic beverages, fermented cherry juice is used to distill cherry fruit brandy.
Cherry juice is often used in beer too. Belgian Kriek lambic is a distinctive beer, amde from the ferment of sweetened cherry juice.
In mixed drinks, cherry juice is best mixed with club soda, orange or apple juice. The tart flavour of cherry juice adds a nice twist to cocktails.

Cherry Heering is a Danish Cherry Liqueur created by Peter Heering in 1818. The Ruby Red liqueur is made by soaking lightly crushed Danish cherries and spices in neutral grain spirit. The mixture is then matured in casks for up to five years, sugar is added during the aging process.

Note: It is a good substitute for Maraschino Liqueur in cocktails, but Cherry Heering is sweeter with a more pronounced cherry flavour and unlike Maraschino Liqueur which is a clear spirit, Cherry Heering is a Ruby Red and will affect the colour of the cocktail.

Cherry Lambrini is a fruity perry or pear cider ( a perry is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears, similar to a cider ) manufactured in Liverpool by Halewood International. Lambrini is available in 6% ABV, Original and Luci ( 3.4% ABV) and Cherry, Peach and Strawberry Lambrini all at 5% ABV.