El Bandarra Al Fresco - Barcelona Aperitivo, Drink with Tonic or as a Spritz, Bittersweet, Alternative to Pink Gin, Notes of Grapefruit and Mediterranean Botanicals - 1 Litre Bottle, 14% ABV

Product Information

You know what they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s certainly true of Select Aperitivo, which has followed the same time-honoured recipe since 1920. Refined and complex, it’s made using a guarded blend of 30 botanicals, with juniper, rhubarb root and clove vying for attention in the glass. For a Venetian Spritz par excellence, follow the ratio of 3 parts prosecco, two parts Select, one part soda and top with a buttery Nocellara olive. Susan: Now, you say that your family had a winery. Were they making vermouth? What kind of wines were they making?

This iconic Italian bottle graces bars the world over – and with good reason. It takes a medley of 68 herbs and spices to achieve that tell-tale bitter edge and crimson red hue, and our negronis wouldn’t be the same without it. Exceptionally dry, it’ll bring notes of orange peel, cherry, clove, and cinnamon to whatever you’re drinking. With a modern, vibrant bottle design, the new El Bandarra Al Fresco is recommended for a simple serve of one part Al Fresco and two parts tonic water over ice, garnished with an orange slice. El Bandarra Vermut Red is made with Macabeo and Xarel·lo grapes plus more than 50 extracts of herbs, flowers and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, liquorice, aniseed, camomile, rosemary, bay leaf, hops and bitter orange – rested in oak barrels before bottling at 15% ABV. El Bandarra Vermouth is made from high-quality Macabeo and Xarel·lo grapes, native to the region. Once these grapes are transformed into wine, they are aged in wooden barrels and later macerated with a careful blend of botanicals, including wormwood, orange, and elderflower, among others. This intricate process provides the drink with its distinct flavour and aromatic profile. Alex: It’s the same. That’s the nicest thing of the wild hipsters, they get it. They’ve fallen in love with the traditions and they are doing them the same way. It’s called “La Hora del Vermut,” the vermouth hour. It’s during weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 3:00 PM.

It follows the success of their first three vermouths under the name of El Bandarra – Spanish for “the rogue”: Vermut Red, Vermut White and Vermut Rosé. Lively and refreshing in equal measure, Aker is made with rosé wine from Chapel Down, raspberry eau-de-vie from Capreolus, and a line-up of British botanicals. Think strawberries and cream in a glass, shot through with fresh herbs to temper the sweetness. Muddle a 50ml measure with mint and strawberries before topping with English sparkling wine and a dash of soda for a summer spritz. Starlino Rosé Apertivo makes for a pretty-in-pink Italian spritz Starlino Italy – Starlino Rosé Aperitivo

This stylish aperitivo transports ya straight to Florence (that's the brand's hometown, FYI). It's made with a whopping 34 botanicals, including rhubarb, iris and olive leaves - there's LAYERS to this baby. Do as Luca does and serve it sans soda for maximum flavour. SPRITZ ITBorn into a wine-making family, he and his brother are on a mission to make wine-drinking fun by taking those traditions of the past and reinventing them to enjoy today. He is here to teach us Hot To Drink El Bandarra Vermouth! Amongst the range, there is also the Bandarra Spritz — a refreshing long drink that offers guests that Barcelona-by-the-beach feeling. Prepping a tumbler glass with ice, simply pour 1/3 El Bandarra Al Fresco into your glass. Adding cava, a dash of soda water and a garnish of grapefruit, ice and an olive, it will become near impossible to get rid of your party guests.

This is the moment where there’s this socialization and it’s great. It’s before lunch, because we have lunch very late in Spain. It’s the aperitivo moment. I love this moment because, some people have gone out the night before, some people have kids or a mortgage, Still, it’s a moment of socialization, even if you have kids around and people get drunk with vermouth, it’s socially accepted because it’s as if they are eating some tapas, not drinking. What we did was, we took this recipe and we bottled it and we created El Bandarra. And that’s how it was born in September 2014.Alex: For the first three years was Rojo. We launched the brand in 2014, then after two years of seeding the brand, we drove the brand from regional to national in Spain. That was when we started having more distribution and more clients. Some clients asked us why didn’t make a white. So, we thought, “Okay, let’s make a white.” When we bottled the Blanco, at some point, we thought that maybe we put in too much vanilla. We thought it smelled too much of vanilla or we tired different botanicals. Made to be mixed with tonic, Al Fresco is soft, bittersweet, with notes of Mediterranean botanicals, a touch of grapefruit and drops of Barcelona-by-the-beach.

If they would drink another gin and tonic or some other drinks you would say, “Oh, this guy. or this mummy is getting drunk.” But since they are drinking vermouth, then it is socially accepted. It’s a nice way to meet friends and share some food before lunch. So that’s the moment – it’s called La Hora del Vermut. I have to say that also the tonic water means something to me. Like many of my friends, the first person that introduced me to tonic water was my grandma, because they drink a lot of tonic, so that’s where Al Fresco comes from. I think we should hear more and listen more to our grannies because they are amazing. I think it’s a universal concept – the respect and the energy of our grannies or grandmas. But while the Aperol spritz is undeniably the most popular in the UK, many European countries and regions have their own versions, from the more bitter Campari, white aperitifs, vermouths and more. The common factor is the three ingredients in the unfailing ratio of 3:2:1. That’s why we created El Bandarra Rosé, which is the lightest one. It has 30% less sugar than the other ones. We made the three vermouths, but then, last year we launched El Bandarra Al Fresco and I’m very proud of this launch.Bartending boss Giuseppe Gallo created Savoia to sit in the sweet spot between red bitters and sweet vermouth - and the man hit the mark. This stuff is made from a base of Marsala and Trebbiano wines, giving it a slightly nutty and crisp character, plus botanicals including bitter orange, gentian, rhubarb and aloe. SPRITZ IT Fill a wine glass with ice and add the Savoia Americano and Prosecco. Lightly stir, then garnish with three green grapes. El Bandarra Al Fresco Alex: Hipsters are doing the same. How it’s made is with white wine and it’s a fortified wine with a different number of botanicals. Wormwood gives it bitterness. It’s one of the key ingredients. We also use cinnamon, clove, bitter orange, and over 50 botanicals. It’s 45% ABV. We created a few, very successful white wines before Bandarra. One which was called El Xitxarel·lo, which means a young, stupid guy in Catalan. While we are Catalan, we are very proud to be Catalan, our idiom is full of insults and swear words. It’s a very rich language in terms of insults. At the point when we launched, two years before launching El Bandarra, we launched this white wine, which has 67 insults on the screen-printed label. Where in the world does an hour turn into the whole day. Every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 3, El Barcelonís, surrounded by their friends and family, spend the entire afternoon sipping vermouth before lunch even begins. Today’s guest is gunning for the whole world to embrace La Hora del Vermut!