Aperitifs

The word "aperitif" derives from the Latin aperire -to open. It is as an "opener" to the appetite that aperitifs are usually taken; a liquid prelude to eating.

An aperitif can be anything to which one cares to give the title. You may take champagne as an aperitif, or enjoy an aperitif wine. Plenty of people enjoy nothing more exotic than whisky or a very simple gin drink.

Sherry (dry or medium sweet) is a long-established aperitif although it has justly been considered elsewhere in its own right. It is increasingly realised that sherry is best served chilled. Fine sherry is usually too delicate to endure ice, but the heavier types may be served on-the- rocks, and often are in the USA.

Chilled white port is finding renewed favour, and a glass of dry white wine has become a stylish item to call for.

Gourmets tend to despise aperitifs, claiming that they dull the appetite and weaken appreciation of fine food and wine. A flood of cocktails before a rich repast is obviously not to be recommended, but those who have a preferred aperitif should not be swayed by the pundits.

The aperitif habit is an excellent one, providing a pre-prandial inter- mission, a period of détente, sociably dividing the aspects of the day.

Of the generic products classed as aperitifs, none is more universally made and consumed than vermouth.

It is customary to link vermouth with the old Roman medicinal absinthianum vinum, which was said to have descended from the legendary vinum Hippocraticum, the wine of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Be that as it may, the ancients certainly knew the merits of the worm- wood plant (artemesia absinthium) as a vermifuge: for centuries, intestinal worms were, owing to inadequate preparation of food, a curse at all levels of society.

During the Dark Ages much medical knowledge was lost, yet in Bavaria at least, they continued to prepare a beneficial wormwood-infused wine (vermutwein). Towards the end of the sixteenth century a Piedmontese gentleman, Signor d' Alessio, uncovered the secrets of the Bavarian product and, believing it had commercial prospects, took it to France.

Though he had some success in court circles, at a less rarefied level, his vermutwein found few takers. Where his medicine -for that it what it was -continued to be taken in France it became known as vermout. Whether d' Alessio had more success in his native Piedmont is hypothetical. However, vermout became known there and in 1678 Leonardo Fiorranti wrote that it "is an aid to digestion; it purifies the blood, induces sound slumber, and rejoices the heart".

Prior to that, on 26 January 1663, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary: "up and by water with Sir W. Batten to White Hall, drinking a glass of wormwood wine". The celebrated diarist makes no comment: obviously there was nothing unusual in taking this potion.

The fact that vermout of a sort was being drunk in England proves that it was being traded. In fact, the spelling "vermouth" was a result of patronage by the English, whose historical influence on drinks had been very strong.

Today, vermouth comes in two established forms, plus two modern mutations adapted to new or regional tastes. It can be drunk on its own, mixed with syrups, iced, diluted or have spirits added. It is the supreme aperitif wine.