The Manhatt a

How a classic cocktail was reborn by going back to its roots

by

plated nyc :: spring 2008

Stephanie C ain

Dr inks go in and out of fashion.

The gin martini was standard until James Bond decided it was better shaken, not stirred, with vodka. The Cosmo craze began in the mid-90s, fueled mightily by the success of HBOs Sex and the City. And promotional campaigns by energy drinks such as Rockstar led to the now-standard Rockstar vodka and Jger bombs. Some drinks completely die (who drinks an Eastside anymore?) and others become a new tradition (think Lemon Drop). Some libations, however, defy trends. They never really go out of style, but are never at the forefront either. Take the Manhattan. Made of rye whiskey, vermouth (one part sweet, one part dry for a perfect), Angostura bitters and a cherry garnish, the drink originated on this very island, compliments of a nightspot called the Manhattan Club in the 1870s. During the Prohibition years of the 1920s, the Manhattan was a popular drink used to mask the flavors of poorly produced, harsh-tasting bootleg liquor. It has lasted through the home cocktail parties of the 1950s, the tropical mai-tai fascination of the 60s, the vodka martini and the mojito. Even the SATC ladies traded up from the Cosmo every now and then to the drink named after their city. But in the past few years, Manhattans have been seen gracing the bars of some of New Yorks most popular hangouts. The Only and Pegu Club. While the cocktail revolutionaries have been storming the barricades of Heinekens, Chardonnay and Jack Daniels for two decades, never before has the fascination with early 19th-century cocktails been so intense. Bartenders are taking a greater interest in the authenticity of cocktails, bringing back old-fashioned recipes and inventing their own twists on the classics. Since the Manhattan perfectly illustrates this period, its become the poster-drink of the latest cocktail rave. 18 plated nyc
photo by michael gadd

drink is no longer reserved for the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel it can be found in the hands of young people at Employees

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t an
Little Branch Perfect Manhattan
2 oz. rye whiskey oz. sweet vermouth oz. dry vermouth Angostura bitters Stir and serve with a maraschino cherry garnish.
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The approach is to do for drinks what fine dining does for food, said Joseph Schwartz of Little Branch, a bar in the West Village. Its a place for what an elevated cocktail should be. Its about conversation, not rushing, using quality ingredients and putting care into the drink the way a chef would for food. This trend is considered to have begun with Dale DeGroff, a bartender at the Rainbow Room in the 1990s. He focused on the gourmet approach to drinks by using fresh fruit juices in his drinks, now commonplace at any serious bar. Sasha Petraske started Milk and Honey in 2000 with a similar concept do for the cocktail what chefs did for food. In 2005, he and Schwartz began Little Branch, recreating the speakeasy feel at their basement-level bar that specializes in authentic old-style cocktails with nightly jazz as a chaser. When the Manhattan originated, the word cocktail referred only to a mixture of liquor, sugar, water and bitters, but now the term is used to describe almost any mixed drink containing alcohol. Until the 1970s, most cocktails were made with gin. But during the 1980s, vodka took off and is the primary starter for cocktails today. The components of a cocktail include: a liquor base (such as gin or vodka), a modifying agent (like vermouth, bitters, juice, sugar, eggs or cream) and a flourish or coloring (such as cordials, simple syrup, or garnishes). According to Seth Kanor, a bartender at Ouest on the Upper West Side, you always need that third ingredient for balance, especially in a Manhattan. No other drink exemplifies the pre- and postProhibition cocktail scene like the cherry-infused whiskey-based aperitif. In early cocktail books from the 1930s, the Manhattan was often described as a sweet pre-meal drink. According to W.C. Whitfield, master mixer and author of Just Cocktails and the 1941 follow-up book Heres How men would rather have a sweet drink than one with a kick before dinner. (It makes you wonder what a drink with a kick must have been, because Manhattans kick like a mule.) At the time, the Manhattan could be seen everywhere. Whitfield called it the number one hit parade, imposing a jazz-era term for popular records onto the cocktail. A.S. Crockett praises the drink in his The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book and Lucius Beebe, author of the The Stork Club Bar Book, considers it the archetypal short mixed drink. Beebe wrote that because of the unrivaled tonic qualities as a restorative and element for firming moral fiber, the classic and standard Manhattan cocktail was an almost universal rite until the end of the nineteenth century. The Manhattan wasnt just a drink it was a phenomenon that helped pave the way for other mixed drinks such as the martini. Ive even seen some books call it the Manhattan glass because it was the ubiquitous stirred and served up drink at the time, Schwartz said. In 1948, David Embury, an attorney and cocktail aficionado, wrote a book on the craft, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. In it, he theorizes that there are six basic drinks martini, Manhattan, old-fashioned, daiquiri, sidecar, jack rose and all other drinks are variations of these six. For example, he believes that the margarita is a Mexican sidecar, using tequila as a base and lime juice as the modifier rather than the traditional cognac and lemon juice. But most bartenders agree its more like 40 drinks, Kanor said. He and 20 plated nyc

Like a fine wine, letting the Manhattan sit for a bit makes for a better drink.

Schwartz both said that the most important book for learning about cocktails is The Savoy Cocktail Book, a.k.a. the Bartenders Bible. Written in 1930 by the Savoy Hotel Londons chief mixer, Harry Craddock, it provides recipes for more than 750 drinks. But the most important rules, Kanor said, are not written but learned from master bartenders. For example, you never shake brown liquors like Scotch and Bourbon. And just as chefs are said to leave the tiny tricks that make their dishes special out of their cookbooks, the inventors of drink recipes dont always release their secrets. When it comes to the Manhattan, you have to add a lemon twist, Kanor said. The acid of the fruit helps release the flavors more than just the bitters. And, like a fine wine, letting the Manhattan sit for a bit makes for a better drink. Making a cocktail in a classic, authentic way is a long enterprise. At Little Branch, Schwartz wont put a new drink on the menu until the recipe has been proved to be as faithful to the original as possible. He consults many different sources to determine the recipe, mostly from his collection of antique cocktail books. Most old cocktail recipes are vague so you are always making assumptions, Schwartz said. Most of the time the recipes say drinks for six. Youd be really lucky to find a straight proportion. You have to use your best guess. When we put a cocktail on our list, we go through many different books to find the common denominators. To further replicate a Prohibition cocktail like the Manhattan, Little Branch serves the drinks up in sixounce glasses, quite small for most cocktails found in the city, yet larger than actual Prohibition cocktails, which usually came in at four ounces. Ouest, however, serves classic-style drinks in 10-ounce martini glasses.

hen comes the actual mixing, which proves just as labor-intensive. Kanor squeezes the fruit by hand for his many different Cuban daiquiris and slowly peels the bright yellow lemons for the ideal twists. He purposely makes my Perfect Manhattan with a low-end whiskey to prove how the bitters, cherry and vermouth work together to cover the harshness. As Beebe wrote in the The Stork Club, the Manhattan is perhaps the only mixed drink that is most exciting when made with ordinary quality bar whiskey. When Kanor is almost finished, he siphons a taste with a straw to make sure the drink is coming out correctly. You have to taste it for balance, he said. After a while it will smooth over as the bitters work through. Drinks are like Czanne paintings. To me, its the art of it, the mixing of simple things and the challenge of making something distinct. Its how you combine the ingredients. He pops in a cherry garnish and hands me my drink. As I take the first sip, I can taste the sharp, spicy whiskey and the sweetness of the vermouth. It goes down easy at the beginning, still cold from the chilled martini glass. It warms up as it sits out, but the flavors now start to fuse, making the whiskeys graininess prominent yet sweetened. The Angostura bitters prevent it from turning overly sugary. The cherry marinates at the bottom of the glass awaiting the moment when the drink is finished. It provides the ideal last taste, the dry alcohol offset by the candied fruit. The perfect Perfect Manhattan.

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Cocktail Evolution
Nearly a century ago, a sweet cocktail was hard to come by. But over time, drinks have become increasingly candy-like. Recently, the dry drinks have come back in style. Still, theres a vast spectrum of drinks out there to quench anyones thirst.

Rum Sour
2 oz. gold rum 2/3 oz. lemon juice 1/2 tsp. superfine sugar

glasgow
2 oz. blended Scotch whiskey 1 oz. French vermouth 1 tsp. absinthe 1 dash Peychaud's bitters

Tequila Cocktail
2 parts red port 3 parts tequila 2 dashes bitters 1 splash lime juice

2 oz. vodka 4 oz. tomato juice 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice 1 splash Worcestershire sauce 3 to 4 dashes Tabasco 1 tsp. horseradish

Bloody Mary

Martini
1 oz. dry vermouth 4 oz. gin

Drier

Brandy Julep
2 tsp. superfine sugar 1 oz. water 5 to 6 mint sprigs 3 oz. cognac 1/2 tbsp. dark rum

Manhattan
2 oz. rye whiskey 1 oz. Italian vermouth 2 dashes Angostura bitters

El Diablo
2 parts black currant liqueur 2 parts lime juice 5 parts tequila ginger ale

Moscow Mule
1/2 oz. lime juice 2 oz. vodka 4 to 6 oz. ginger beer

gin and Tonic

2 or 3 oz. London dry gin 1 lime wedge 6 oz. tonic water

Daiquiri
2 oz. white rum 1/2 tsp. superfine sugar 1/2 oz. lime juice

Whiskey Sour
2 oz. bourbon 2/3 oz. lemon juice 1 tsp. superfine sugar

La Paloma
2 ounces tequila 1/2 ounce lime juice pinch of salt grapefruit soda

gypsy
2 oz. vodka 1 oz. Bndictine 1 dash Angostura bitters

Bronx
2 oz. London dry gin 1 oz. orange juice 1/2 tsp. French vermouth 1/2 tsp. Italian vermouth

Mojito
1/2 oz. lime juice 1 tsp. superfine sugar 3 mint leaves 2 oz. white rum club soda

Algonquin
1 1/2 oz. rye whiskey 3/4 oz. French vermouth 3/4 oz. pineapple juice

Margarita
2 oz. tequila 1 oz. Cointreau 1 oz. lime juice

Cosmopolitan
2 oz. vodka 1 oz. Cointreau 1 oz. cranberry juice 1 oz. lime juice

Boxcar
2 oz. London dry gin 1/2 oz. Cointreau 1/2 oz. lime juice 1 egg

Liv Gold and Rachel King / Plated NYC

Pia Colada
2 1/2 oz. gold rum 3 oz. pineapple juice 1 oz. coconut cream

Irish Coffee
2 oz. Irish whiskey 5 to 6 oz. coffee 2 tsp. sugar heavy cream

Tequila Sunrise
1 1/2 oz. tequila 3 oz. orange juice 1 tsp. grenadine

White Russian
1 1/2 oz. vodka 3/4 oz. Kahlua 3/4 oz. heavy cream

Tom Collins
2 oz. London dry gin 1 tsp. superfine sugar 1/2 oz. lemon juice club soda

Source: Esquire.com Drinks Database, University of Rochester

Sweeter

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