El Bandarra Al Fresco - Barcelona Aperitivo, Drink with Tonic or as a Spritz, Bittersweet, Alternative to Pink Gin, Notes of Grapefruit and Mediterranean Botanicals - 1 Litre Bottle, 14% ABV

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Adding an olive – with the saltiness of the olive, amazing how it tastes and when you eat the olive with this vermouth taste, it’s like making love. It’s good. It’s great.

Susan: So I was wondering with your vermouth, because it is made out of wine, do you ever make sangria from it? Alex: It’s the same. That’s the nicest thing of the wild hipsters, they get it. They’ve fallen in love with the traditions and they are doing them the same way. It’s called “La Hora del Vermut,” the vermouth hour. It’s during weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 3:00 PM. Alex: I mean, first of all, Spain is a first producer in the world for olives. It’s the main producer and, I mean, we love olives and I have to say that I’m pretty much of an addict. Once I start eating olives, then I can’t stop. Maybe the Blanco or the Rosé we’ll put over ice with a slice of orange and we add an olive as well. It’s great because, as an aperitif, you have this perfect balance between the sweetness and bitterness of El BandarraIt has this taste, this touch of bitterness, but also fruitiness and sweetness. I mean, I’m a vermouth drinker. I love vermouth Rojo, but I have to say that many, some days when I arrive at home, I like to drink something refreshing Al Fresco, it’s amazing. Al Fresco and tonic. You drink it, take a long sip, it’s super easy to drink.

You know what they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s certainly true of Select Aperitivo, which has followed the same time-honoured recipe since 1920. Refined and complex, it’s made using a guarded blend of 30 botanicals, with juniper, rhubarb root and clove vying for attention in the glass. For a Venetian Spritz par excellence, follow the ratio of 3 parts prosecco, two parts Select, one part soda and top with a buttery Nocellara olive. At some point, we realized it was a mistake. We said, “Okay, we have bottled it already. Let’s start selling it. People loved it. The white is great. Then one year after, we thought, “Why don’t we make a rosé?” Susan: How were they drinking it? In the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties? Now, is it pretty much the same? I’m talking traditional vermouth drinking.

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Susan: Fab. Now I always end by asking my guests the same question: If you could have any drink anywhere right now, where would that be? Susan: Now Aperitivo drinking, as opposed to the hour of the vermouth – the hour that is the whole day. I know a lot about the Italian Aperitivo culture. Is it the same in Spain and in Barcelona? The taste of Barcelona in a bottle. Al Fresco is El Bandarra’s long drink, perfect to extend the good times with friends. Virgili Bros has a mission to “challenge the uptight nature of the drinks business by creating original and enjoyable concepts” such as its El Bandarra Vermut range.

A new vermouth created by two brothers in Barcelona to challenge “the uptight nature of the drinks business” is being launched in the UK. That’s why we created El Bandarra Rosé, which is the lightest one. It has 30% less sugar than the other ones. We made the three vermouths, but then, last year we launched El Bandarra Al Fresco and I’m very proud of this launch. Alex: There were a lot of soda brands. So, during the early Eighties, Seventies, all over Spain, in every little town, there was a carbonicus. A carbonicus was where distributors used to refill bottles of soda. They were everywhere. There were hundreds of different brands that used to use this kind of bottle that we have. It has this tap mechanical tap. Suddenly, the system was not, in terms of sanitization, it was not the proper. Normally for that red sangria, many restaurants use that and there’s also the very amous, sangria of Cava. With a white sangria with Cava, they can use a touch of Bandarra Blanco to give a point of sweetness. I’m not a sangria drinker. I’m more of a vermouth drinker, but, yeah, a touch of Bandarra, is always great for enjoying sangria also.

Wanna get really wild? Spike your Spritz with a fun, flavoured liqueur or cordial. The team at British aperitivo brand Sipello like to use an elderflower liqueur in their Spritz (see their recipe below), but you can add anything with complementary flavours: coffee, fruit-based and floral liqueurs are all fair game. GO FOR THE GARNISH It follows the success of their first three vermouths under the name of El Bandarra – Spanish for “the rogue”: Vermut Red, Vermut White and Vermut Rosé. If they would drink another gin and tonic or some other drinks you would say, “Oh, this guy. or this mummy is getting drunk.” But since they are drinking vermouth, then it is socially accepted. It’s a nice way to meet friends and share some food before lunch. So that’s the moment – it’s called La Hora del Vermut. This cookie is set by Rubicon Project to control synchronization of user identification and exchange of user data between various ad services.

Bebe con responsabilidad. Para saber más sobre el consumo responsable, visita www.disfrutadeunconsumoresponsable.com Susan: My grandmother was the one to teach me to drink one spirit only because then I wouldn’t get a hangover. She also was the first person to introduce me to the caipirinha. So, I had a grandmother who liked her drink and yes, and she saw, I liked my drink. And so, she would teach me these things. Susan: And always trying it with tonic to make sure you get the proportions? Right? Because I assume that was the idea to always have it with tonic. Twins Alex and Albert Virgili have drawn on their family’s wine expertise to develop El Bandarra Al Fresco which is a blend of local Grenache wines and natural Mediterranean botanicals including liquorice, mint, rose and citrus. It is cherry red in colour with ABV of 14.5%. Alex: For the first three years was Rojo. We launched the brand in 2014, then after two years of seeding the brand, we drove the brand from regional to national in Spain. That was when we started having more distribution and more clients. Some clients asked us why didn’t make a white. So, we thought, “Okay, let’s make a white.” When we bottled the Blanco, at some point, we thought that maybe we put in too much vanilla. We thought it smelled too much of vanilla or we tired different botanicals.

El Bandarra Al Fresco Details

Alex: El Bandarra is that kind of friend, she or he, who when you go out, he’s the one who remains in the club until the end of the night. He or she is that this kind of person that is a good person, but he’s a troublemaker. So that is El Bandarra, what El Bandarra means? So, we hope that it brings takes out the Bandarra that you have inside of you. Exporting cultural traditions is not an easy task; it is made slightly simpler when that tradition revolves around drinking. Alex Virgili, General Manager of El Bandarra, had me longing for La Hora del Vermut, and it wasn’t even the weekend. And it was a bit hard. We listed the Rojo in, I would say 40 different accounts in the UK, but the Brit consumer didn’t understand. Then we tried, as I told you, with the rosé with tonic and it didn’t work. And we said, okay, let’s launch Al Fresco. Born into a wine-making family, he and his brother are on a mission to make wine-drinking fun by taking those traditions of the past and reinventing them to enjoy today. He is here to teach us Hot To Drink El Bandarra Vermouth!