Raspberry Liqueur

Raspberry Liqueur is what a liqueur is, a neutral liquor, wine or gin with added flavours and sweetness from fruits, herbs and other ingredients.

In Raspeberry Liqueur, raspberries are macerated with sugar in vodka, and vanilla pods are often added for a wider flavour profile, alcohol and sugar draw out the fruit's natural juices and essential oils into the spirit.

Few popular raspberry liqueur brands would be

• 1. Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur.
• 2. Bols Black Raspberry Liqueur.
• 3. Giffard Framboise Liqueur.
• 4. St George's Raspberry Liqueur.
• 5. Mathilde Framboise Liqueur.

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.

Riunite Lambrusco Red Wine

Red wine is a table wine made from dark grape varieties. There are around twenty different grape varieties that are extremely popular around the world, while grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir get most of the attention from connoisseurs. The other popular grapes are Syrah ( or Siraz ) of the Rhone Valley of France, Malbec the national grape variety of Argentina, Grenache of Spain, Sangiovese grapes of Italy, Tempranillo the noble grapes of Spain and many more. Read more on them here.

Younger wines are usually an intense violet, while matured wines are brick red and ild wines are brown. The colour of the wine comes from the anthocyan pigments in the skin of the grapes, and thus although the juice of these purle grapes is greenish-white. the colour red is extracted from the skin of the grapes.

Wines are fermented alcoholic beverages and thus there are several stages of fermenting the pressed juice obtained from the fruit must, then allowing a second fermentation known as Malolactic fermentation, a process where certain bacteria is allowed to convert malic acid present in grape juice into lactic acid. This is followed by a racking stage where the lees ( yeast and other solid sediments ) is separated from the wine. Then ready wine is then aged and some pass through a stage of filtration for better clarity.