Manhattan Perfect

If you asked us what our "house cocktail" is, the answer would be our version of the Manhattan. The Manhattan is a cocktail that's been around for a long time - for good reason. One of the legends of it's origin states that it was invented at New York's Manhattan Club around 1880. According to a 1916 history of the club: “The Celebrated Manhattan Cocktail was inaugurated at the Club. This consists of equal portions of vermouth and whiskey, with a dash of orange bitters.” There are others who lay claim to the Manhattan's birth, but the only thing that is clear is that it originated in New York City.

Most people make a Manhattan with whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters. We are happy with the classic version, but over the years we tinkered with the recipe and came up with one that is similar to the "Perfect Manhattan". Our version uses bourbon, sweet vermouth, and blanc vermouth (not dry vermouth). We also use more vermouth (in total) than what's used in a typical Manhattan today (but what's in keeping with the Manhattan Club recipe), so it's very important to use good vermouth. For the sweet vermouth our choice is Carpano Antica Formula. This is an Italian vermouth created from a recipe that dates back to 1786. It has notes of vanilla, spice, and dried fruits. A footnote here about vermouth - it's fortified wine so after you open the bottle it's best to keep it well-sealed and refrigerated. If you don't use vermouth often, you should consider purchasing it in small (750 ml) bottles.

Blanc vermouth is colorless (like dry vermouth), but it's sweet and herbal. Dolin, made in France, is the original blanc vermouth. There are Italian "bianco" vermouths that tend to have stronger vanilla notes than French Chambery blanc. Since the Carpano Antica is pretty vanilla forward, we think the combination of the French blanc and the Italian sweet vermouths is what make this cocktail "perfect"... well, along with a very good bourbon. There's a NY Times article about the growing popularity of blanc vermouth if you want to read more.

You can mix up a wonderful Manhattan using a nice bourbon, or for those who can wait, you can use something more commercially available (like Maker's Mark) and barrel age a batch of Manhattans. If you've read our Autumn on 44th Street and Brooklyn blog posts you've seen us mention our mini barrel - which we originally purchased from Deep South Barrels during a trip to the Minnesota State Fair several years ago. Aging a batch of cocktails in this little barrel (for 6-8 weeks) makes for one of the smoothest drinks you will ever taste. It's also nice to have a batch ready for a party - which allows you to mingle with your guests instead of standing at the bar shaking cocktails.

The Manhattan has never gone out of style. It has inspired many spin-offs (including our previous post the Jamaica Bay cocktail). The borough of Manhattan has been an inspiration for countless works of art, and the Cocktail Artist has done a lot of sketching there over the years - including some drawings and paintings completed with a cocktail in hand!

Cheers!


Manhattan Perfect

2 ounces Bourbon
1 ounce Sweet Vermouth
1 ounce Blanc Vermouth
Dash of Aromatic Bitters
Dash of Cherry Bitters

Shake all ingredients briefly with ice cubes in a cocktail shaker. Stain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cocktail cherry.

Barrel aged Manhattan and the ingredients

Manhattan Skyline - original watercolor painting by The Cocktail Artist

Manhattan Rooftop - original watercolor and crayon sketch by The Cocktail Artist

Cocktail Artist watercolor sketch of rabbit from the wallpaper in Bemelmans Bar, New York
(Note: Bemelmans Bar, in the Carlyle Hotel, is one of our favorite places to enjoy a cocktail in Manhattan)

Cocktail Artist watercolor and pencil sketch of Bow Bridge in Central Park





Popular posts from this blog

The Last Call

Image
This post is a week late, but this blog is our hobby (not our real job) so we’re not going to worry about it. Anyhow, we came up with this drink for Mardi Gras as the “last call” before the beginning of Lent – a time when some of us stop drinking for 40 days (we’ll let you know how that works out). The name “Last Call” also references the classic “Last Word” cocktail. The Last Word is really a perfect cocktail. It’s equal parts of four ingredients (gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur, and lime) and a superb balance of tart, herbal, and sweet. It’s one of our fallback cocktails – one that we mix up when we can’t make up our mind about what we want to drink.  Another classic that we regularly enjoy is the Aviation Cocktail. The Aviation is another gin cocktail and is one of the few that uses Crème de Violette – a sweet, floral liqueur that is typically a deep purple hue. It takes mixing quite a few Aviations to go through a bottle of Crème de Violette, so it’s probably
Read more

Lemon Bergamot Gimlet

Image
In case you don’t know us personally, or haven’t read the bio on our blog , you may not realize the “The Cocktail Artist” is really a partnership between two architects (who also happen to be married to each other). One of us comes up with the recipes, does the photography, and writes the blog posts – the other one creates all of the original artwork and offers opinions on the cocktail recipes. Being architects, we sometimes let our design-sense get the better of us – meaning we have been known to purchase a bottle of booze because we like the design of the bottle.  Occasionally this backfires, but rest assured (with some creative mixology or a bit of barrel-aging) we have always been able to make use of the contents of those impulse-buy bottles. Right now, two of the most attractive bottles in our liquor cabinet contain Italian spirits – Malfy Gin Con Limone and Italicus . Italy has always been a design trendsetter, so it’s not surprising that these bottles stand out (they ev
Read more

Amalfi Martini

Image
Darn! Why didn’t we buy those airline tickets to Italy when they were cheap? It would be so nice to be lounging in a beautiful Italian seaside town right now.  The Amalfi region, on Italy's west coast, is known for it's production of lemon liqueur and fine writing and art paper - sounds like the perfect place for us! Oh well, maybe it would be better to be there during the off season. Italy is probably packed with American tourists right now. Let's  just pull out the watercolor paints and the cocktail shaker and bring a bit of la dolce vita  to our patio. Our Amalfi Martini (naturally) features limoncello. It's a fairly low-alcohol liqueur, so we boost the proof of this cocktail by adding our vodka of choice - District Made Vodka by One Eight Distilling. If you are using a vodka that doesn't have much flavor on it's own (which, honestly, is most vodka) you may want to add a couple dashes of citrus bitters to this recipe. This just wouldn't be an Ita
Read more

Cherry Capital Old Fashioned

Image
Cherry Capital Old Fashioned - original watercolor painting by The Cocktail Artist If you've read some of our previous posts (such as the Up North Raspberry and Rye or the Grand Mariner Cocktail) you know that we're fans of the bourbon and rye produced by The Traverse City Whiskey Co . Traverse City, Michigan is known as the "Cherry Capital" for being the area with the largest production of tart cherries in the United States. In Traverse City, you will find wonderful freshwater beaches, lots of summer tourists, and (of course) cherries! You can attend the Cherry Festival in July, go to the Cherryland Mall, and fly into Cherry Capital airport. So the folks at Traverse City Whiskey (naturally) produce an American Cherry Edition of their bourbon. Here in the Nation's Capital we were lucky enough to find this cherry bourbon at our local liquor store. It's a nice bourbon for sipping neat, but during #OldFashionedOctober we also tried it in an Old Fashioned and
Read more

Douglas Fir Martini

Image
This was one of our very early blog posts. Now that the holiday season is here it seems like a good time to revisit it. Our cocktail recipe remains unchanged, but we wanted to add some information about the ingredients and include a bit more artwork. This martini, with it’s pine forest aroma, is our antidote to holiday stress. Mix up a couple of these to help you through your decorating, gift-wrapping, etc… Doesn’t enjoying a cocktail while you relax in front of the fireplace sound much nicer than struggling to get the Christmas tree in the stand? Along with The Cocktail  Artist's watercolors maybe we can give you the feeling you're walking through a pine forest instead of stressing out over some holiday preparations. At the heart of this cocktail is Clear Creek Distillery’s Douglas Fir Brandy . We discovered this unusual liqueur in our local liquor store a couple of years ago and just couldn’t resist giving it a try. Clear Creek calls it “a tree in a bottle”. It's m
Read more