Are we witnessing global reconquest by wormwood? Artemisia absinthium, the plant known in German as vermut and the chief ingredient in absinthe, is very much back in fashion. It’s also one of the defining botanicals that go into vermouth, the fortified wine aperitif whose name mimics the German. And vermouth, too, is on a roll. Martini, the old Piemontese vermouth dynasty, oddly headed by a member of the Bacardi Cuban rum family, celebrated its 150th birthday this summer by jetting a couple of containerloads of celebs and racing cars into a palazzo on Lake Como for a glittering shindig.

The company simultaneously released a new limited edition Martini Gran Lusso that supersedes the saffron-tinted, myrrh and bergamot-scented, Dolce & Gabbana-designed Martini Gold bestseller.

Gran Lusso is the brainchild of the London-based cocktail expert Giuseppe Gallo, the Martini brand ambassador, who seems to divide his life between bars, laboratories and Formula One paddocks. “Until recently, vermouth by itself had almost disappeared from London bars, but the fashion for vermouth in cocktails made up for it,” Gallo tells me.