Definition of "vermouth"

He gazed around until on the lid of a spinet he spotted a promising collection of bottles, gin, whiskey, vermouth and sherry, mixed with violin bows, a flute, a toppling pile of books, six volumes of Grove's Dictionary mingled with paperback thrillers, a guitar without any strings, a pair of binoculars, a meerschaum pipe and a jar half-full of wasps and apricot jam.

1956, Delano Ames, chapter 14, in Crime out of Mind‎

Vermouth originated in the 18th century, when wine growers in the foothills of the French and Italian Alps developed a method of enhancing the taste of sour or uncompromising wines with the infusion of a variety of sweeteners, spices, herbs, roots, seeds, flowers, and peel.

2014, Ray Foley, Bartending For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, page 116

Earlier this year while in Madrid, I fell prey to what the Spanish call la hora del vermut, the vermouth hour, a break in the day for a glass, generally before eating.

2023 July 20, Eric Asimov, “This Summer, Pause for the Vermouth Hour”, in The New York Times‎

As we sat over our vermuths he glorified the Company’s business, and by-and-by I expressed casually my surprise at him not going out there.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 201