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Back to cocktail classics. The Manhattan cocktail is undoubtedly its crown, the king, so to speak. Over the years, he has acquired legends, stories, variations, and today many have already forgotten what he really is.
Let’s, dear readers of the blog and professionals, day and night standing guard over the culture of drinking alcoholic beverages, let’s remember and honor the real, unshakable recipe of Manhattan. A cocktail that is simple in terms of ingredients and preparation process, but not simple in terms of taste.
Cocktail recipe Manhattan (aperitif, stir)
Ingredients:
- 50 ml bourbon;
- 20 ml red vermouth;
- 1 dessert bitter Angostura.
Preparation:
- fill a glass for mixing cocktails with ice;
- pour all the ingredients and mix well with a bar spoon;
- strain the drink through a strainer into a cocktail glass;
- garnish the drink with a cocktail cherry.
The recipe is exemplarily simple, which is typical for most classic cocktails, but … It is very important to choose the right ingredients, in particular whiskey. Forget about scotch – you need bourbon, that is, American whiskey, and preferably rye whiskey. Vermouth sweet, red, Martini or Cinzano Rosso, other thoroughbred vermouths from the Italian family will do. The ideal beater is Angostura, but it can also be replaced with an orange counterpart or Pesho. Let me remind you that “dash” is a measure of volume equal to 2-3 drops, so do not overdo it, but you should not be greedy either.
Cook only by washing and nothing else. Some sources will tell you that Manhattan can be prepared in a shaker, but this is not so – the classic version of the drink is prepared only in a mixing glass! Well, the decoration is only a cherry and only a high-quality, not plastic Chinese surrogate (I think I will write about maraschino, that is, about classic cocktail cherries soon).
Manhattan cocktail history
The most common legend about this cocktail says that the mother of the well-known Winston Churchill, Lady Randolph Churchill (aka Jeannette Jerome), was involved in its invention. The historical reference indicates 1874, it was then that the mother of the future Prime Minister of Great Britain gave a dinner party in honor of Samuel James Tildon, an old friend of her father and one of the candidates in the US presidential election race. The dinner party was held in New York, in the then-famous Manhattan Club. It was in honor of this event that Dr. Ian Marshal invented a cocktail of bourbon, vermouth and bitter, which, subsequently, was named after the host club.
Film of the same name
In general, the legend looks quite reliable and attractive, but in reality everything is a little more confusing. The dinner party, as you know, took place on December 29, 1874, but if you look at the wiki page about the Honorable Winston Churchill, you will certainly notice his date of birth – November 30, 1874. Now imagine how the beautiful Jeannet endures a difficult birth in England, and they were difficult, since Winston was born prematurely, a month later he is in New York to organize a mass event. Please note that in those days it was possible to get from one continent to another only by boat, and, as you know, they were not very agile.
However, the place of invention of the cocktail is most likely correct – the Manhattan Club is mentioned in the work of William Grimes, the famous cocktail historian, “Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of American Cocktail”.
It’s hard to say how it really was there, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. But in 1882, the Manhattan cocktail was mentioned in Harry Johnson’s New and Improved Bartender’s Manual, and in 1887 it was seen in Professor Jerry Thomas’ book The Bar-Tender’s Guide, or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks” (you can read about these people in this article). In any case, the cocktail was included in the collection of cocktails of the International Bartending Association (IBA) only in 1961.
Cocktail variations Manhattan
There are many, and even very many. The most popular are Dry and Flawless (Perfect) Manhattan – the first is prepared with the addition of dry vermouth and garnished with a twist of lemon peel, pre-sprinkling the drink with essential oils from the lemon peel, and the second – using two types of vermouth, both sweet and dry.
Dry Manhattan
- 70 ml bourbon;
- 14 ml of dry vermouth;
- 1 dec Angosturia or orange bitter.
Classic cooking.
Perfect Manhattan (Perfect Manhattan)
- 40 ml rye whiskey;
- 20 ml of dry vermouth;
- 20 ml sweet vermouth;
- 1 desh Angostury.
Classic cooking.
When writing the article, information from the site www.scienceofdrink.com was used. An excellent and informative blog written by a knowledgeable aesthete and true mixology shaman. Unfortunately, I do not have such knowledge and experience as Pavel, and I do not have the opportunity to experiment with alcoholic beverages. I, perhaps, am closer to the people – there are all sorts of tinctures, liqueurs. In any case, try the Manhattan cocktail, play with its recipe, experiment, maybe this is the one YOUR cocktail!