Fred Jerbis Vermut 25 Vermouth 750ml

Fred Jerbis is the project of Federico Cremasco, a trained herbalist and forager working from the town of Polcenigo in Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Years ago Cremasco came across a recipe book from the late 1800s filled with old formulas for vermouth, amaro, and bitters, and set out to recreate them using botanicals he grows himself or forages under special permission from a nearby national preserve. The name itself is a play on "Federico's herbs," reflecting a project built entirely around his personal relationship with plants and place.

Vermut 25 starts with Verduzzo, a native Friulian white wine aged roughly a year in tank until it takes on a slightly maderized character. Following a recipe adapted from 1946, Cremasco infuses the wine with twenty-five botanicals, including three varieties of wormwood, two types of orange, gentian root, cinchona bark, and angelica, each extracted individually using whichever method, hot or cold, best suits that particular plant. The finished vermouth is left unfiltered, so a light sediment can appear as a mark of minimal processing.

The result is richly aromatic, with citrus and bitter orange leading the nose alongside fresh herbs. On the palate, red fruit and black cherry emerge before gentian and cinchona bring a well-balanced bitterness, finishing round and smooth thanks to angelica root.