Australian Vermouth
A guide to vermouth in Australia – the great in-betweener.
Not quite wine, not a spirit either: aromatised, fortified wine, built on a wine base, lifted with a splash of grape spirit, and steeped with botanicals – wormwood chief among them.
Is vermouth a spirit? No.
You'll find vermouth on this site under Spirits, and I'll own that it's the wrong drawer – kept there only because it's where people go looking for it. A spirit is distilled. Vermouth is not. It's wine that has been fortified (strengthened with a neutral grape spirit) and aromatised (flavoured with botanicals, wormwood above all). Its strength sits between roughly 15% and 22% – above table wine, well below a spirit's 37%-plus.
The tax office agrees, for what it's worth. Under Wine Equalisation Tax, vermouth is explicitly a grape wine product – taxed as wine, at the wine rate, not as a spirit under excise. So the paperwork, the strength and the flavour all point the same way: vermouth is an aromatised wine that keeps company with spirits, not a spirit itself.
Vermouth is the great in-betweener of the drinks world. It isn't wine, exactly – not the way the rest of the bottles on this site are wine – and it isn't a spirit either, though it's shelved here alongside them and behaves like one on a back bar. The defining ingredient is wormwood: the plant that gives vermouth both its bitter spine and its name, from the German Wermut. No wormwood, no vermouth.
Australia has quietly become very good at it. The category here is small and cottage-scale next to whisky or gin, but it's active, it's serious, and much of it is coming from wine and food people rather than career distillers – winemakers, chefs, butchers, sommeliers – which is a large part of why the results are so idiosyncratic, and so worth drinking. This is where I'll collect reviews and, over time, a fuller map of who's making what.
How it's made, briefly
Four moving parts: a base wine (often a neutral white, though red and other bases turn up, especially here); fortification with grape spirit to build strength and stability; botanicals – herbs, roots, barks, citrus, flowers and spices – for aroma and bitterness; and wormwood, the non-negotiable one. Sweeter styles are sweetened after the fact; dry styles aren't.
The Australian point of difference is that many local makers reach for native botanicals – wattleseed, lemon myrtle, strawberry gum, river mint, pepperberry, riberry – so the same European template comes out sounding unmistakably Australian.
Maidenii
The brand that essentially defined the modern Australian style. A collaboration between French-born winemaker Gilles Lapalus, formerly the long-time winemaker at Sutton Grange, and bartender Shaun Byrne, going since 2011, with wormwood and wine both sourced in Victoria and a dozen or more native botanicals in the mix.
Named after botanist Joseph Maiden, who pioneered the cataloguing of Australian flora – a nod that tells you exactly where its head is at. If you read one book on the subject, it's their The Book of Vermouth.
Regal Rogue
One of the most widely distributed Australian vermouths – the one you're most likely to find on a shelf. Lower in sugar and drier in cut than the European norm, built around native botanicals, and a genuine medal-winner on the international circuit.
If Maidenii made the case that Australia could make serious vermouth, Regal Rogue made the case that it could travel.
Naturi
Richard Gunner's small-batch range, made by a food figure rather than a distiller – table wine and barrel-aged brandy, infused with botanicals that lean hard into the Australian bush. Cloudy, fruit-driven, electric.
The most recent Australian vermouth to stop me in my tracks. [Reviews of the Per Spritz and Rosso are on this site.]
More to explore
A starting shortlist, not the full census – I'll build the complete producer map out separately, at a measured pace.
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Adelaide Hills Distillery SA
The 78 Degrees range, including an award-winning rosé-style semi-dry. -
Imperial Measures Distilling SA
The Scarlet vermouths, recognised at Tasting Australia. -
L.A.S. Vino WA
Nic Peterkin's cult Margaret River operation turning its hand to vermouth. [Reviewed here.] -
Lino Ramble McLaren Vale
The Slinky dry white. [Reviewed here.]
How to keep it, and drink it
- Refrigerate after opening. Vermouth is wine and it oxidises. An open bottle left warm on the back bar is exactly how the category got its dusty reputation.
- Drink it within a few weeks, not months. Once open it fades – freshest in the first fortnight, still good for a month or so, tired long before a spirit would be.
- Serve it chilled. Neat over ice with a twist is the truest test of a good one – if it can't carry a glass on its own, it won't hide in a cocktail.
- Buy smaller if you drink it slowly. Half-bottles exist for a reason; there's no shame in matching the format to the pace.
Line drawings are hand-made · swap for photos or bottle shots anytime · producer list is a foundation, not a finish line
