Photos: New vermouths

Winemaker Andrew Quady (Essensia) started Vya in 1999, using notes from a lecture professor Maynard Amerine gave on vermouth in 1972 when Quady was a food science and viticulture grad student at UC Davis. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

June 30, 2014 11:33 AM PT

A new generation of artisan vermouth producers, based mainly on the West Coast, is changing the drink’s reputation as your grandfather’s dusty, old-school mixer.

Quady says his Vya Extra Dry Vermouth is inspired by a “mountain meadow in the springtime after a rainfall.” ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Quady says the sweet vermouth is inspired by “your mother’s kitchen at the holidays when she’s baking.” ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

The newest Vya vermouth is the Whisper Dry. Quady says the botanicals in it “evaporate in your mouth, leaving the taste of the wine,” or, the whisper effect. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Winemaker Patrick Taylor of Hammer & Tongs in Portland, Ore., wanted to re-create a memory of chasing a tennis ball down a ravine with his L’Afrique vermouth, which has a Syrah base with kola nut and turmeric. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Taylor based his Sac Résine on a memory of visiting Old Mission Santa Barbara with his grandmother as a kid and smelling incense that had soaked into the woodwork. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Tad Seestedt and his partners in Ransom Wine Co. and Distillery in Oregon spent two years formulating Ransom Dry Vermouth. Now, five years later, they are about to release a sweet vermouth. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Bartender Neil Kopplin and his partners at Oregon’s Imbue Vermouth use Pinot Gris as the canvas for their Bittersweet Vermouth. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Unlike with the Bittersweet, semillon is the base of Imbue’s Petal & Thorn, a soft and floral vermouth but with a bitterness akin to Campari or Aperol. ( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Food