González Byass has relaunched a historic brand of vermouth, La Copa. With a base of Fino sherry, this extra-dry vermouth is built around the original 19th-century recipe. We can't wait to see the cocktails you lot can make with this...
Herbaceous notes are balanced with sweet red fruits, alongside slightly savoury balsamic notes.
Added a dash to cheap gin & tonic and it really shone.
Both the best and worst thing about this is that the fino sherry base is quite forward. That's great because it makes this vermouth interesting and distinctive, but not so great because that faintly sour/salty fino flavour really competes with whatever botanical complexity this vermouth might have. I've found it good in a savoury martini or gibson, as I'd bet it would also be in dry/perfect manhattans, but a bit less versatile than a classic French dry vermouth, both for cocktails and cooking, at least to my taste. And as an aperitif, well, I'd just have sherry instead.
