Classic Cocktail – How to Make a Manhattan

This is part of my Third Friday Cocktails series. Find cocktail recipes, drink mixing techniques and lore right here on the 3rd Friday of the month.

The Manhattan is a thing of beauty and joy forever. It’s got depth and complexity and you can easily customize it to your particular tastes.  What’s more, if you master the nuances of the Manhattan, you’ve effectively mastered the building blocks of most classic cocktails. You don’t really need a Manhattan recipe, you just need the basic ratios and ingredients. From there, play around with the proportions and contents until you find your perfect Manhattan recipe.

There are three ingredients in a Manhattan. A fourth optional ingredient is the garnish, more on that below.

• A Whiskey
• A Vermouth
• Bitters

It’s common to use 1 part vermouth to 2 parts whiskey in a Manhattan but you can also use a 50-50 ratio. No matter how much vermouth is in your Manhattan, finish it with a dash of bitters.

Ok, so there’s the basic idea. You can stop there and go try your hand at making a Manhattan or you can read on for spirit suggestions and my method for mixing up a Manhattan.

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Rye whiskey is the traditional spirit for this drink, and it’s both my preference and my recommendation. However, I also know from personal, as well as anecdotal experience, that one can make a pretty darned good Manhattan with bourbon instead. I would encourage you to give Rye a chance if you’re not already a fan.  It’s grassier, slightly rougher profile plays so well off the sweet vermouth that it would be a shame not to explore it.

What kind of rye? Well, I’m a big fan of Bulleit Rye (pretty easy to find and inexpensive at around $28/bottle) but Rittenhouse is my favorite rye for a Manhattan.  It’s also great with just a cube. I also enjoy Redemption Rye, which is a similar price point to Bulleit, though I feel like it has a much grassier edge – that’s not a bad thing, just a different thing. The best Manhattan I ever made used Bulleit’s 12-year-old rye. It was top notch but pretty pricey, at least for my regular home liquor budget.

If you prefer a Manhattan made with bourbon, or just want variety, I suggest a higher proof, less sweet bourbon.  I like Old Forester 100 proof for a bourbon Manhattan, but there’s NO shortage of options, so sample to your heart’s content.

According to my cocktail heroes  The New Cocktail Hour (Note: I sincerely cannot recommend this book enough. It’s the best), the Manhattan likely got it’s start in the 1870’s (ah, the beginning of the Gilded Age!) at, well, the Manhattan Club.

Manhattans are made with sweet vermouth.  Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I’m just playing. You do want to use sweet vermouth in a Manhattan but it’s not quite so basic.  I like Dolin Rouge (easy to find, very inexpensive) and Carpano Antica (harder to find, at least around here). There’s lots of options when selecting the best vermouth for your Manhattan, and you’ll really only know what you like if you taste around. The most important thing about vermouth is storing it in the fridge once opened, it oxidizes rapidly if stored at room temperature. You only need a little vermouth in the drink, so a bottle can last for quite a while.

Most Manhattans are made with Angostura bitters, which are a true treasure, and a staple of any cocktail bar. Bitters are served in dashes, and a little goes a long way. If you want to experiment with other bitters (and there’s tons of options!), taste a few dashes in some seltzer water to get a feel for the flavor.

All right, so that’s the basic building blocks. From here, it’s all a matter of personal taste and preference, so take this information and prepare to run with it until you figure out YOUR perfect Manhattan (but not A Perfect Manhattan, that’s a different cocktail recipe, NOT an over-confident bartender, as I learned to my surprise once)

2 ounces of whiskey

1 ounce of sweet vermouth

2 dashes of bitters

If you like a sweeter drink or if you’re not super into very spirit-forward cocktails, this is a great ratio. The vermouth will sweeten and soften the whiskey, and the cocktail will be pleasantly syrupy and complex.

3 ounces of rye whiskey

1 ounce of sweet vermouth

4-5 dashes of bitters

I evolved to this ratio over time, as I was finding the sweetness to be a bit cloying. Having said that, I have friends who like their Manhattans with 2 ounces of whiskey (bourbon, in their case) and 2 ounces of sweet vermouth. While it’s sweeter than I personally like, it’s still an enjoyable drink. It could be worth trying if you like the flavor of whiskey but prefer it  mellowed.

While I am a staunch advocate for eating and drinking things the way YOU like them, I am equally staunch in my belief that Manhattans should be stirred, not shaken. And that’s not just because I want to be contrary or because I hate James Bond. Stirring a cocktail chills the drink while ensuring it’s well combined, but it also strategically dilutes the cocktail. Once I tried stirring, it was all over. The drink was just as cold but not watery.

Measure your ingredients into a chilled cocktail shaker or pint glass that is partially full of ice. You want enough ice to really chill that whiskey down (your vermouth is already cold because you store it in the fridge, right?) but not so much you can’t stir.  I put my shaker in the freezer, with ice in it, and let it get nice and frosty. This helps to both chill the drink and slow the dilution rate.  Plus it’s dramatic when the frosty shaker takes on the warm whiskey – and who doesn’t want a little show with their drink?

See Essential Cocktail Tools for my shaker, jigger and cocktail spoon recommendations.

Build in this order – bitters, rye, vermouth. Stir with long bar spoon or chopstick for about 20 seconds. That gives your spirit time to get cold and the ice time to melt into the drink to open it up.  You’ll figure out your own stirring preferences eventually, but 20 seconds is a great starting point. A long bar spoon is super helpful for moving all that ice around.

Strain into a chilled glass. You can keep this as simple as throwing a cocktail glass in the freezer with a few cubes in it while you mix up the drink, or you can put the glass in the freezer earlier in the day. I like to chill both glass and shaker for hours in advance.

A polarizing question – do you serve a Manhattan on the rocks or neat? Honestly, do what makes you happy. I like mine up (no ice)  because I want a frosty cocktail but not one that gets watery while I sip. But if you like yours with ice, go for it. If you’re going neat, then you can serve your drink in a traditional stemmed cocktail glass or you can put it into a rocks glass. Go for a rocks glass if you’re serving over ice – trying to drink out of a cocktail glass with ice in it can be fraught with peril.

For glassware in a hurry, I highly recommend these cocktail glasses and these rocks glasses from Amazon. I have used sets of both over the years and they’re pretty and sturdy. They’re not the cheapest option but in my opinion they’re great quality for a reasonable price. If you’ve got something to drink out of for now, then keep an eye out for vintage glassware or check eBay or Etsy.

One more thing – we need to talk about how to garnish a Manhattan. The traditional accent is a maraschino or Luxardo cherry. You can either drop 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever into the glass or skewer them on a cocktail pick. If you want to be a little edgy, considering instead expressing an orange peel over the surface, and then garnishing with the peel. Try it both ways, and see what you prefer. They work nicely together, too, so don’t be afraid to do both.

If you’re just getting started mixing drinks at home, here’s the Essential Bartending Tools you’ll need.

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