Why Is Everybody Drinking Vermouth?

It was a sticky night in the Berkshires when I found myself at Ombra, a tapas-inspired restaurant in Lenox. I had just come from an oppressively hot summer party at the Norman Rockwell Museum, and instead of ordering the usual crisp rosé or predictable Aperol spritz, I noticed multiple patrons around me drinking something different: an amber liquid, over ice, garnished with orange slices and, to my confusion, an olive.

Color me ignorant, but I had never thought of vermouth as something to be enjoyed on its own. It was the thing you barely—and I mean barely—added to a martini, or the thing you left to collect dust on your bar shelf for years on end. But my partner, recalling some vermouth he sampled in Barcelona, insisted we order a round. I followed suit. That first sip of chilled vermo