i.The Territory
Vermouth as a commercial drink was born in Turin in the 1780s, and the city still takes it personally. A fourth-generation herbalist in the San Salvario quarter had tasted Marfa Blanco on a trip through Texas and wrote to ask whether it was a joke.
It was not a joke. The reply proposed an exchange: one barrel of Marfa Blanco sent east, one barrel of their Torinese rosso sent west, and a red vermouth made from what each side learned.
ii.The Survey
The barrels crossed somewhere over the Atlantic. Alex followed theirs to Turin and spent six weeks in the back room of the shop learning the old way of building a rosso: caramelised sugar cooked to the colour of a violin, wormwood from the hills above Pinerolo, and a patience that does not come naturally to anyone from Texas.
The first lesson was that nearly every red vermouth, including theirs, is sweeter than it needs to be. The second was not to say so in their shop.
Back in Marfa, the two barrels were blended on a kitchen table, first at even parts, then at three to two, then with a pinch of chile pequín that nobody in Turin was told about.
iii.The Coastline Redrawn
The result was Rosso Meridiano, named for the brass ring that holds a globe, since the recipe went most of the way round one. It uses a third less sugar than a classic Torinese rosso, and every red Alex has made since follows the Turin method for the caramel.
The shop in San Salvario now keeps Marfa Blanco on its shelf. As far as anyone can tell, it is the only Texan bottle in the quarter, and customers ask about the creosote.