The Negroni was the world's best-selling classic cocktail for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, according to a survey of 100 of the world's top bars across 30 countries. That is not a trend. That is a settled fact. And where there is a Negroni, there is a argument about which vermouth belongs in it.
Italian vermouth has been the default answer for generations. But English producers have been building something worth taking seriously. Here is how the two traditions actually compare, from the inside of a South London workshop where the botanicals are counted in the dozens.
The case for Italian vermouth
Italian vermouth has two things going for it that no amount of British ambition can fully replicate. History, and the particular quality of light-coloured Italian wine that gives a Torino-style vermouth its characteristic bitterness and depth.
Carpano Antica Formula is the benchmark most bartenders reach for when they want a sweet, vanilla-laden red vermouth with enough backbone to hold up to a fat gin and bitter Campari. It is based on a recipe dating to 1786. Carpano has been making this long enough that the product does not need to explain itself. The vanilla sweetness, the Antonio Bennati heritage, the way it coats a glass without ever becoming cloying, these are things Italian producers earned over centuries. They are not replicable in three months, or three years.
Cocchi Vermouth di Torino is the other Italian reference point that English producers genuinely respect. It took 94 points and a Falstaff Wermut Trophy in 2025 for a reason. Cocchi is drier than Carpano, more aromatic, with a quinine bitterness that opens the palate before a sip is even taken. It is the vermouth most professionals cite when they say "something Italian" in the same breath as "something worth thinking about."
The broader category has the weight of cultural habit behind it. Italian vermouth is what most people have in front of them when they order a Negroni in a bar outside the UK. It is what they reach for in Italy, in France, in New York, in Tokyo. That ubiquity is itself a form of quality assurance.
The case for English vermouth
English vermouth is younger in every sense. The category barely existed ten years ago. What English producers like Asterley Bros have built in that time is a different proposition rather than a direct imitation.
The most concrete difference is botanical density. Asterley Bros ESTATE English Sweet Vermouth carries 31 botanicals, including orange, cacao, rosemary, wormwood, fennel, English hops, thyme, grapefruit, lime, and sultana. Carpano Antica Formula does not enumerate its botanicals publicly. Most Italian producers do not. English vermouth, by contrast, tends to wear its ingredient list prominently. Asterley Bros publishes its full botanical set on its product pages, which is unusual in a category where opacity has always been part of the mystique.
The production logic is different too. Asterley Bros makes its vermouth in small batches over three months, using British Pinot Noir as the base wine for ESTATE. The Pinot Noir is an English variety from East Anglia, not a Piedmont Nebbiolo or Marsanne from the Rhône. That British grape carries different natural acidity and body, which means the finished vermouth tastes of somewhere specifically English rather than trying to taste Italian.
DISPENSE, the Modern British Amaro, takes this further. It is not a vermouth at all, technically, but a reinterpretation of the brothers' inherited Sicilian amaro recipe through a British botanical lens. Twenty-four botanicals, British Pinot Noir vermouth base, wormwood, English hops, orange, grapefruit, vanilla, apricot, raisin, date. It sits in the glass with more bitterness than ESTATE, more shadow, more complexity. It is the product that most clearly signals that this is not a producer trying to make Italian vermouth in England. They are making something else.
How they perform in cocktails
This is where the argument gets practical.
For a Negroni, the case for Carpano Antica Formula is well-established. The vanilla sweetness balances the Campari without needing the gin to carry that work. The result is round, generous, Iberian in the best possible way. Most barkeeps in the world are not wrong to reach for it.
For a boulevardier, where the bourbon or rye needs something with more structure to meet it, English sweet vermouth has a specific advantage. The British Pinot Noir base carries a slightly higher natural tannin and a different kind of fruit. ESTATE's 31 botanicals arrive in sequence rather than all at once, so the drink builds rather than simply delivering sweetness. A Negroni made with ESTATE is a different drink from a Negroni made with Carpano. Whether it is better is a matter of what you want from the glass. It is demonstrably different.
Noilly Prat Extra Dry remains the default answer for a Martini in most contexts. The French dry vermouth is dry enough to let a London dry gin speak fully. It is also slightly oxidised in a way that adds depth without weight. English dry vermouths like SCHOFIELD'S are more aromatic and floral, with rose, camomile, jasmine, gentian, cardamom, lime leaf, rosemary, and elderflower. They make a Martini that smells differently. Whether that is an improvement depends entirely on what you want the drink to do.
For a spritz, the English argument strengthens considerably. ASTERLEY ORIGINAL British Aperitivo, made on a grain spirit base with bitter orange, gentian, rosemary, raspberry, star anise, myrrh, and rhubarb root, is lighter and more acidic than an Aperol or Campari spritz. It is specifically designed for that format. Italian aperitivo shaders like Martini Bitter or Cocchi Americano are the obvious comparators, and Asterley ORIGINAL holds its own against both.
Where English vermouth stands in the market
The global vermouth market has been growing at a steady clip. Market analysts consistently point to low-ABV aperitif culture, the rise of by-the-glass programmes in premium bars, and the Negroni's dominance as primary drivers. The European market specifically has shown consistent growth in demand for aromatised wine, with the UK as one of the more dynamic consumption markets outside Italy and France.
English vermouth's position within that growth is still being written. Asterley Bros has won a 94-point Platinum Medal and a Best Sweet Vermouth Overall award from Saveur in 2022 for ESTATE, a Silver Medal at the World Vermouth Awards, and a 94-point score at the Falstaff Wermut Trophy. These are competitive results in an Italian-dominated category, and they represent a genuine shift in what English producers can claim on quality grounds.
What they have not yet fully claimed is the distribution weight. Italian producers have decades of bar relationships and retail listing history. English vermouth is still at the stage where a buyer in Tokyo has to actively seek it out. That is changing, but it is the main practical difference between the two traditions right now.
The verdict, applied to your shelf
If you are stocking a bar and you have one slot for sweet vermouth, the honest answer is that Carpano Antica Formula is still the safe, defensible default. Bartenders know it. Guests recognise it. It does not need to be explained.
If you are stocking a bar and you want to make a statement about where the category is going, ESTATE English Sweet Vermouth is the thing to reach for instead. It is not trying to be Carpano. It is making a different argument about what British terroir and British botanicals can produce. The 31 botanicals are real. The British Pinot Noir base is real. The three-month production time is real. And for a Negroni or a boulevardier, the case for drinking something made in SE26 rather than Torino is stronger than it has ever been.
For dry vermouth, the choice between Noilly Prat and SCHOFIELD'S is more genuinely open. SCHOFIELD'S is more aromatic, more English, more interesting in a Martini where you want the botanicals to perform at their fullest. Noilly Prat is more austere and more familiar. Neither is wrong. They are doing different things.
The broader English versus Italian argument is not a competition. It is a category expanding in both directions, and the drinker who understands both traditions is better equipped than the one who knows only one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main difference between English and Italian vermouth?
The most fundamental difference is the base wine and the botanical tradition that informs it. Italian vermouth uses Italian wine varieties and reflects centuries of Piemontese and Turin production tradition. English vermouth uses English-grown or English-sourced wine, when wine-based, and draws on a British medicinal botanical tradition represented most notably by Nicholas Culpeper's 1653 London Dispensatory. The flavour profiles reflect that difference: Italian vermouth tends toward the sweet, vanilla-led style associated with Carpano or the bitter, quinine-forward style of Cocchi. English vermouth tends toward higher botanical density, more evident British hops and hedgerow herbs, and slightly different fruit character from English Pinot Noir.
Which is better for a Negroni, English or Italian vermouth?
Both work, and the choice depends on the drink you want to make. Carpano Antica Formula gives a sweeter, more generous Negroni with vanilla warmth from the first sip. Asterley Bros ESTATE gives a Negroni with more botanical complexity arriving in sequence, a slightly different fruit from the British Pinot Noir base, and a structure that builds differently through the glass. The Negroni was the world's best-selling classic cocktail for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, so whichever you choose, you are in good company.
Does English vermouth taste noticeably different from Italian?
Yes, in most cases noticeably so. ESTATE English Sweet Vermouth has a higher botanical density than most Italian equivalents, with 31 named botanicals versus the typical Italian approach of a core set of herbs with more proprietary opacity. The British Pinot Noir base gives it a slightly different tannin and fruit character than an Italian red vermouth. It is not a subtle difference. Whether that difference is preferable is subjective. It is definitely real.
Is Asterley Bros ESTATE vermouth an award-winning product?
Yes. ESTATE has earned a 94-point Platinum Medal, a Best Sweet Vermouth Overall award from Saveur in 2022, and a Silver Medal at the World Vermouth Awards. These results appear in trade press and on the Asterley Bros product blog. They are real competitive results in an Italian-dominated international category.
What cocktails suit English dry vermouth?
SCHOFIELD'S English Dry Vermouth, with its floral, aromatic profile including rose, camomile, jasmine, gentian, cardamom, lime leaf, rosemary, and elderflower, is best suited to a Martini or a spritz. The floral aromatics open up significantly when paired with a neutral London dry gin in a Martini format. In a spritz, it performs differently from the sweet vermouths, leaning more acidic and botanical. ESTATE sweet vermouth is the Negroni and Manhattan base. DISPENSE, the Modern British Amaro, works as a digestif poured over a single large ice cube or in a Black Manhattan (swap the bourbon for rye and you have the argument in a glass).