Spring Cleaning - Throw out Your Vermouth!

By Anthony Todd in Food on Apr 14, 2010 7:00PM

It's Spring, and time to do some cleaning. Kitchens and pantries are full of "non-perishable" items that get kept until the dust coating them is thick enough to use for socks. Most of these items DO have a shelf life, and it's often shorter than you think.

Today, let's talk about liquor. Most liquor is relatively non-perishable, due to the high alcohol content. But, some people treat their liquor cabinet like a museum. "It can't go bad! What can grow in it?" Not all spoilage is the result of bacterial growth - with alcoholic products, the problem is more often exposure to light or oxidation. You can see this particularly well with artificially colored booze in clear glass bottles - we had a bottle of bright green Sour Apple Pucker (don't ask) which, after about 6 months in the sun, was totally clear.

Vermouth, as the bartenders at Sable recently reminded us, is particularly prone to spoilage. Because it is a wine-based product, it needs to be tossed out fairly often, as it goes bad and tastes awful. Buy it in small bottles and use them up fast. Good vermouth should make a drink taste BETTER - if you like your martini's ultra-dry, it might be that you've only had spoiled vermouth. Toss it out after no more than 3-4 months. We keep ours in the fridge, which seems to help.

Every other spirit also has an expiration time. We use one year as a good rule of thumb - it's not that the booze will 'spoil' and become poisonous, but it will start to lose flavor. Any cream-based liquor will start to turn. If something has been sitting in your liquor cabinet for over a year, drink it!

Photo by Galerie Montmarte.