I was reading about Strucchi — a vermouth from Parma, made since 1880, still family-run, still using the same botanicals and old copper stills. They’ve been in Europe for 144 years and never left. Now they’re in the US.
No fanfare, no influencer blitz, just quietly showing up in a few California and New York accounts. Not in every bodega. Not on every bar back. Just where someone remembered how vermouth should taste — bitter, floral, slightly medicinal, not sweetened into submission.
I tried their Bianco last winter in Oakland. Poured it over ice, a twist of lemon, nothing else. It tasted like a memory I didn’t know I had — of my father’s cupboard in Moscow, of a bar in Verona where the bartender wiped the counter with the same rag he used to dry glasses. Not perfect. Just honest.
