White Creme De Menthe

Creme de Menthe is the French for mint cream. It is a sweet mint flavoured alcoholic beverage. Made with Corsican mint leaves, steeped in grain alcohol for several weeks and then filtered and sweetened to create the liqueur.

There are two variations of creme de menthe, white and green, green Creme de Menthe is coloured green by adding mint leaves to the mint extract, otherwise both are similar in taste and flavour.

Note: If a bottle of Creme de Menthe is hard to come by, or not in a mood to buy a liqueur, substitute the Creme de Menthe Liqueur with a Creme de Menthe Syrup and Vodka.

Dry 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.

Anis

Anisette is as the name suggests, an anise flavoured liqueur most commonly consumed in the Mediterranean countries. It is a colourless, sweet liqueur and the sweetness comes from the added sugar, which is in contrast with dry anise flavoured spirits like Absinthe.

Anisette have two distinct production variations, one is a distilled drink, created by distilling fermented anise, and the other is a simple maceration of anise filtered to Anisette.

Note that often Pastis liqueur is confused with Anisette but Pastis is different and it uses Licorice and Anise.

Note: To substitute Anisette in a cocktail, if absolutely necessary, either steep Anise Extract and Anise Oil ( preferably Green Anise, since Anisette is created with Mediterranean Green Anise ) in neutral Vodka for a few days and add sugar syrup to finish, and use, or use Anise Seed and follow Home Recipes for Anisette to create your own.

Anise flavoured spirits or liqueurs had been in use for ages, but anise flavoured spirits gained popularity post the initial ban on Absinthe, the anise, fennel and wormwood derived spirit that has the notoriety of being a highly alcoholic spirit psychoactive and hallucinegenic drug, that was was banned for a while.

The most popular anise based or anise flavoured spirits are Absinthe, Anisette, Arak, Galliano, Pernod Fils, Ouzo, Pastis and many more.