How a Niche Cuban Cocktail Helped Popularize Blanc Vermouth

Cocktail lore, as fabricated as it can get, features scores of accounts where the right mix of spirits and modifiers produces a classic cocktail. But it’s rare to hear of the reverse: a singular cocktail breathing life into an entire category of booze.

Such an episode played out in 1913, when the invention of the classic Cuban cocktail the El Presidente helped the then-fledgling French white vermouth category knock down its barriers to entering the global drinks space. The account provides a terrific testimony to just how much a well-made cocktail can shrink the world. It’s also tinged with a little quirkiness, especially since Cuba never fell under the scourge of French colonialism like many of its Caribbean neighbors. So how exactly did a humble cocktail invented in Cuba alter the trajectory of a fortified wine category invented some 4,700 miles away?

The Creation of Comoz

In 1881, the French distillery Comoz released its eponymous blanc vermouth. There is debate over whether Comoz invented the style — some argue fellow French distiller Dolin was the first. However, Comoz’s original poster art for its white vermouth, featuring the brand’s iconic white-clad court jester, includes the phrase “Vermouth Blanc Inventeur” (“Vermouth Blanc Inventor”) printed by the royal minstrel’s feet, laying claim to the product’s creation.

What is concrete about the Comoz blanc was that it was indicative of the dainty vermouths produced by France’s Chambéry region. The blancs produced in Chambéry were sweeter than dry vermouth and more floral and restrained than sweet vermouth, although Comoz’s version was not as sweet as other expressions. This burgeoning vermouth category became a hit in Europe, and other blanc vermouth brands began cropping up in France and Italy.

A Drink Is Born

North America was a different story. Nineteenth-century American bartenders loved using dry and sweet vermouths for their cocktails, but white vermouth wasn’t really a thing in the U.S. until Italian brand Martini & Rossi launched its blanc version in 1910. And even when it did, the style took a back seat to its more famous cousins.

White vermouth’s fortunes would start changing in 1911, when Comoz became the first French vermouth exported to Cuba. Other French vermouths would soon follow. Around 1913, an unknown Cuban bartender designed a concoction built around Comoz blanc vermouth and rum. The drink was a hit.

The original El Presidente recipe, first documented in the 1915 book “Manual de Cantinero,” called for two parts Chambéry blanc vermouth — which was originally Comoz — and one part light rum, along with grenadine, curaçao, and bitters. It was more akin to a riff on a Martinez. The recipe morphed into a drink of equal parts blanc vermouth and rum with a dash of grenadine. While some attribute this change happening in the late 1930s at Ernest Hemingway’s favorite Havana hangout El Floridita, this 50/50 iteration first shows up in Basil Woon’s 1928 book “When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba.”

During Prohibition, Americans visiting Cuba discovered the El Presidente, fell in love with the drink, and took the recipe back home for illicit (and, after 1933, legal) enjoyment. Which recipe they enjoyed isn’t concrete, although the 50/50 seems like the most likely candidate here. Regardless, the cocktail’s popularity gave blanc vermouth the break it needed, and the category flourished in the global market as a result.

Today, both specs are represented in the nebulous world of online drink recipes, which is just as well since both iterations are sublime. The cocktail’s popularity made blanc vermouth a must-have staple for bartenders in the early 1900s, helping the category as a whole develop in the global market.

While Comoz’s early market penetration may have contributed to the choice, there isn’t a documented account or even a fabricated legend about why it ended up in the drink. “I have no idea,” says Eric Seed, founder of Haus Alpenz, the Edina, Minn.-based importer that imports Comoz. “There were six or seven other producers of Chambéry vermouth exported to Cuba at the time. It may be something as simple as the person who chose it really liked Comoz.”

The key to the drink’s deliciousness is still the blanc vermouth, especially if it’s made with the updated recipe. “The drink is spec’d at 50/50, so the vermouth has to be good,“ says Seed. He also notes there is no substitution for blanc vermouth regardless of how the El Presidente is made, even if some recipes don’t make a big fuss about its usage. “Some forget that many used to assume the El Presidente was made with dry vermouth, perhaps due to availability bias,” he says. “But the drink just didn’t work with dry vermouth.”

A Resurgence

For a while, it looked like bartenders in the revived craft cocktail movement would never get to experience Comoz in an El Presidente and understand why it worked. Comoz closed its doors in 1981, and the bottles disappeared from shelves by the late ‘90s. But in 2019, Haus Alperz revived the brand with the help of Comoz’s 19th-century Chambéry rival, Dolin. According to Seed, the El Presidente had nothing to do with the bottle’s resurrection. “Production was restarted independent of the cocktail history,” he says. “In fact, we actually didn’t learn the full extent between Comoz and the cocktail until a year after production restarted.”

Now that it’s back, bartenders are once again discovering why Comoz’s bright floral essence and nuanced vanilla sweetness helped launch the El Presidente (tropical drinks impresario Shannon Mustipher is a fan, for example). Just as importantly, they have a tangible reference point to tell what may be one of the cocktail world’s most grandiose stories to curious guests.

“The drink was a marriage of Cuba and the French Alps, possibly the two most romantic, beautiful places in the world at the turn of the 20th century,” Seed says. “It was this magic moment where the pieces fit and the drink just clicked. That’s really what makes the creation of the El Presidente such a cool story.”

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