How to Use Sherry Wine in Cocktail Recipes

Sherry is one of the most versatile cocktail ingredients. Central to many 19th-century classics, fortified wine has a history of adding layers of saltiness, sweetness, and savory to cocktails. But while sherry is a popular backbar staple, its myriad uses are rather obscure for home bartenders.

“I think the majority of non-industrial people are a bit scared of sherry because all they know about it is [that it’s] sweet and dense,” said New York bartender Natasha Bermudez lately, in relation to their use of the ingredient in modern contexts. Indeed while sherry can It can be richer, with dried fruit or caramel notes, it can also be bone dry and bring minerality to the table. A wide range of sherries is available, and the style is evolving.

Chantal Tseng, bartender and ambassador for US Sherry Week, insists the ingredient is easy to work with in any cocktail. To start, she suggests seeing how sherry fits into your favorite classic recipe. “Lighter organically aged sherries [such as manzanilla or fino] work alongside dry vermouth and lighter spirits like gin, vodka or blanco tequila, emphasizing savory and botanical elements accordingly,” she explains. At the other end of the spectrum, “amontillados and olorosos pair well with the sweeter or blusher vermouths and aged spirits.” And Pedro Ximénez sherry instead of simple syrup, according to Tseng, is “a nice touch” to elevate a daiquiri.

To further demystify fortified wine, here’s a guide to the most common styles of sherry and how to use them in cocktails.

Fino Sherry is non-oxidised, delicate and dry, making it ideal for pairing with strong drinks such as martinis. That tuxedofor example, Fino swaps for dry vermouth, while the same parts Jungle Cocktail adds it to sweet vermouth and gin to give the Martinez a slightly zesty note. But fino also finds its way into more crumpled formats outside of elegant coupé glasses: In the Rebujito, an Andalusian highball combined with lemonade. In another easy-to-drink cocktail, the Coco En Ramacombines the minerality of fino with the salty note of coconut water, enhanced by tarragon-infused vermouth.

Manzanilla is similarly dry and differs from Fino only in its place of origin; Manzanilla comes from a cooler region and gives it more brightness. Given the sherry’s high acidity and saltiness, it’s present in cocktails was compared “Bringing a pinch of salt to the table,” says Andrew Meltzer, a San Francisco bartender and fan of the style. Whether to brighten up sherry classics, such Turn the bamboo into a highballor give a cocktail the 50/50 treatment, like at Bermudez’s less proof variant of the margarita, a dose of manzanilla is an easy shortcut for complexity. It can also stand in place of liqueurs, as in ours Apple Garibaldiwhere it enhances the effervescence of green apple juice.

Amontillado Sherry is slightly deeper than Fino and Manzanilla, but lighter than Oloroso, with a spicier character. For Chip Tyndale’s take on bambooDividing the vermouth quotient between blanc and dry, he found no need to split the sherry as Amontillado strikes the right balance of nuttiness and sweetness that works well against vermouth’s fruity qualities. Amontillado also provides the basis for Alex Anderson’s interpretation of the Sherry Cobbler. Combined with rich demerara syrup and citrus, the sherry adds roundness and weight to the recipe, making it our favorite of several cobblers we’ve blind tasted recently. Amontillado also goes well with modern drinks, such as Romance at Gracelandwhere its slightly nutty character brings out the flavor of peanut butter washed cognac.

The nutty Oloroso sherry is fuller and can stand in for brown spirits in lower versions of classics. Because of its dessert-like quality, Oloroso is particularly well-suited to creamy cocktails like the Sherry Flipor in nightcaps like that Sketches of Spain, a Spanish-inspired cocktail that offers a low-proof last drink of the evening. In lighter drinks, on the other hand, like Matt Piacentini’s Sherry-colored variant of the DaiquiriOloroso adds depth to the recipe, which also has a more concentrated 2:1 demerara syrup to go with it.

Pedro Ximenez is made from dried grapes using the fractional blending method or the Solera method, so that each bottle represents a mixed vintage. PX sherry, as it is known for short, is sticky-sweet and is more suitable as a base than a sweetener. In which Pedro sucker punchstands for sugar syrup, for example, and is balanced with light lemon juice and bitter espresso liqueur. With its raisin flavor, PX Sherry also feels at home alongside the fruity flavors of a Pimm’s Cup, where its nutty character helps bring out Maison Premiere’s embrace the classic to a winter palate. The fortified wine also brightens the spirited construction of the Felice Los 4ensuring that the hard hitting combination of bourbon, rum and peaty scotch remains “crunchy and delicious”.