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The VYA Story

Andy Quady and two business associates noticed the increased volume in the vermouth market created by the “mixed drink” revolution of the past 10 years. With multiple introductions of high quality, super-premium, expensive vodkas, gins, and sour mash-bourbons to the marketplace, an explosion in the popularity of Manhattans, Martinis, and their cousins had taken place in bars and restaurants across the nation. Unfortunately, “vermouth” had remained the stepchild of the wine industry, and had degraded in quality and taste from its aperitif beginnings in Italy and France.

Andy asked the question: “Does it make any sense to mix a $35 per bottle, high quality vodka with a low-end $6 per bottle vermouth to make a great Martini?”

It’s no wonder that the traditional 2 to 1 vodka or gin to vermouth recipe had evolved to “spritzing” vermouth in the direction of a vodka rocks to make the modern Martini.

In the process of creating a world class vermouth like Vya, a second discovery also emerged…vermouth as a great aperitif!...just as the French and Italians had enjoyed it for nearly 150 years. We call it "America's Aperitif."

So Vya makes the drink and Vya is the drink. It’s the perfect mixer for the finest Martinis and Manhattans. And as a stand-alone aperitif, Vya regains the vibrancy and enjoyment created by European vermouth makers of yesteryear.

What is Vermouth?

Vermouth is a wine to which botanicals - anything from the plant world, (for example herbs, spices, fruits and flowers) have been added. The name was derived from the German "Wermut" or Anglo-Saxon "wermod" (wormwood), a plant with powerful medicinal and psychoactive properties.
From the time of the Romans and perhaps the Greeks wormwood infusions were used to cure intestinal worms. Because wormwood is extremely bitter, sugar and spices were added. In the mid 1700's, in Northern Italy, such infusions began to be drunk as aperitifs. The first commercial success in 1786 was credited to Carpano from Turin Italy, who began selling a specially processed infusion (his grandmother's recipe) as vermouth. Fourteen years later Joseph Noilly of Lyons France created French dry vermouth based on the delicate dry whites of the Herault infused with wormwood and local plants such as lavender.

Wormwood is also the principal ingredient in absinthe, a concentrated infusion of wormwood extract in alcohol which became popular for its psychoactive properties in the 1800's. When the active ingredient, tujone, was shown to be both habit forming and harmful, absinthe was made illegal in most countries.