Boozehound (7 page)

In the 1880s and 1890s, the martini and its cousins the Martine, the Martinez, and the Turf Club were basically differing ratios of gin and vermouth, with numerous variations involving dashing in bitters (orange or aromatic), sugar syrup, curaçao, maraschino liqueur, or even absinthe. One of my favorite martini cousins from that era is called the Fourth Degree, which is two parts gin and one part Italian vermouth with dashes of absinthe and aromatic bitters. One key difference in those early days was the gin. The predominant martini ingredient was Old Tom, a sweeter style of gin with more intense botanicals and less of the medicinal aftertaste. The famed Tom Collins actually derives its name from the fact that Old Tom gin was its original ingredient.

Beginning in the 1900s, there was a turn toward dry vermouth and dry martinis, and this is the first time we see
dry
becoming a code word for sophistication. In
Imbibe!
, Wondrich quotes an 1897 newspaper interview with a New York bartender: “When a customer comes in and orders a sweet drink … I know at once he’s from the country.”

During Prohibition, of course, the martini took a bad turn. Vermouth from Europe became scarce, as did certain liqueurs and bitters and Old Tom gin, and people started going for maximum alcohol. “Who was bootlegging vermouth?” says Wondrich. But there was plenty of gin—you could make it in your bathtub.

We now live in an era of huge advancements in the world of gin, bitters, and vermouth. Today, we are lucky that many of the original nineteenth-century ingredients have been resurrected. There are now more styles of bitters—from aromatic to Peychaud’s, from orange to lemon, from cherry to celery—widely available. Hayman Distillers, in London, has reintroduced Old Tom gin to the United States for the first time in almost a century.

In the world of vermouth, most notable is the appearance in the States of high-end Dolin, imported from France and based on an 1821 recipe (and costing eighteen dollars to the usual seven dollars for Martini & Rossi or Cinzano). Even gold-standard dry vermouth Noilly Prat has returned to its roots and now sells its original European recipe in the States—the Noilly Prat we’ve enjoyed for years was a
special
(read: dumbed-down) recipe for Americans. I like the European-style Noilly Prat—it’s got a lot more flavor—but, of course, this change has been a lightning rod for criticism. When it was launched, the conservative
Wall Street Journal
called the new-recipe Noilly Prat “evil” and a “fussy imposter” and said that a martini made with it was “a mess.” I completely disagree—it’s just more of that Very Dry Martini bullying.

Most of the general public, of course, has ignored the various quasi-academic, pseudophilosophical discussions regarding classic cocktails. Perhaps this ignorance has been bliss. Certainly I’ve wanted to slit my own wrists once or twice after debating and dissecting the finer points of a martini or Manhattan. But surely those who’ve never ventured beyond vodka have also missed out on something.

Not too long ago, I was sitting at the bar of Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co., a faux speakeasy in Philadelphia that’s named after a historic bootlegging front. The Franklin follows almost all the standard conventions, including the entrance being below street level. There is actually a hint of real seediness though, since it took over the space of a previous bar that was known for a being a reliable place to buy ecstasy and cocaine. What I love about the Franklin is what I love about any speakeasy—its bartenders make great drinks the right way.

On this night, I was chatting with the bartenders and I was drinking a Carroll Gardens, a mix of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, an Italian amaro, and maraschino liqueur. This is one of no fewer than half a dozen variations of the Manhattan on their cocktail menu, all named after different neighborhoods and cities—the Brooklyn, the Bronx, the Newark, the Kensington (in north Philadelphia).

The place was getting crowded, and as I sipped, two big guys pushed their way to the bar. They wore suits, but these guys were of a familiar type in Philadelphia—hair gel, tans, definitely major gym time and some protein powder in the recent past. I don’t want to label, but if we’re calling the cocktail crowd geeks, then we might reasonably call these guys meatheads. Both were scoping the crowd. Instead of the male bartenders in the vests, they made a beeline to Katie, the lone female shaking drinks behind the bar. “Get me two Grey Goose martinis,” said the shorter of the two. “Very dry.”

“Oh, I don’t have that,” Katie said. She smiled.

“What vodka do you have?”

“We don’t have any vodka.”

The guy looked genuinely perplexed. For a moment, I sort of felt bad for him. “You don’t have any vodka? Are you shittin’ me?”

“No, we don’t have any vodka.”

He turned around to his friend and scrunched up his face. “What kind of fucking place is this?” He turned back to the bartender. “Are you fucking with me? You don’t have vodka?”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, smiling even more widely. She handed the pair a leather-bound, ten-page cocktail menu. “Take a look, and I can recommend something if you’d like. What other spirits do you like?” The two studied the menu for a moment as if it were written in Estonian.

The guy who’d ordered turned to me, exasperated, and asked, “What are you drinking? That any good?”

Okay, I thought. Here we go. Here’s the perfect chance to turn someone on to something new—a new taste, a new flavor. So I said, “You know a Manhattan, right?” He nodded his head in cautious affirmation, suggesting he had some faint notion of a drink called a Manhattan. “Well, this is sort of like a Manhattan except this is a mix of rye whiskey …”

“Ugh,” he cut me off. “Rye whiskey, fuck that.”

“Well, maybe you could try your martini with gin then?” I said, hopefully.

“No way. I hate gin!”

His taller friend slapped him on the shoulder and finally spoke. “Fuck this place,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. No wonder there’s no fucking girls in this fucking place.”

A Round of Drinks:
Beyond Martinis and Manhattans

H. L. Mencken famously called the martini “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” The sonnet, as anyone who took freshman English may remember, is a poem with a specific meter, a structure of exactly fourteen lines and a strict rhyme scheme. This being the age of free verse, no one writes sonnets anymore. Which is just as well, since almost no one reads poetry anymore.

I’ve been tasting a lot of silly drinks lately, and I believe we have entered the age of free verse in cocktails. Creativity is to be admired, and it’s certainly exciting to fancy oneself a “bar chef” or a “mixologist” or even a “
molecular
mixologist.” But as I said to several mixologists when I began this job, “Let’s make a deal: I promise not to pretend I’m going to win a Pulitzer Prize for writing about booze. And in exchange, this is what we will call people who make drinks for a living: bartenders.”

Sometimes I think we’re all losing our minds. Here are some ingredients I’ve seen on recent cocktail menus: rose hips, yuzu juice, truffle oil, tarragon soda, Szechuan peppercorns, tonka bean syrup, cherrywood-smoked white pepper meringue, dehydrated lotus roots, cotton candy floss. Mencken would not be amused.

A lot of contemporary cocktails bring to mind Robert Frost’s assertion that writing free verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net. Or, in the words of one wise friend, befuddled by an upscale cocktail menu, “Dude, every once in a while can I just get something to drink?”

That same friend asked me to tell him honestly—as a normal human being—what my favorite cocktail is. I thought about a drink with ingredients that don’t require a visit to an expensive gourmet shop, an act of Congress to import, or the hiring of a private detective to track down.

That’s easy, I said. No contest. The Manhattan.

With apologies to Mencken, the Manhattan is more complex than the martini and more flavorful. Like a strong poetic structure, the Manhattan’s recipe is more of a starting point than a rote list of ingredients. It is both universal and highly personal. The Manhattan encourages modifications, riffs, virtuoso performances.

And it is deceptively simple. In its most basic form, the Manhattan is two parts whiskey, one part vermouth, a few dashes of bitters, and a garnish. But that is simply an outline. As any art school student is told, you have to know the rules before you know how to break them. Consider the following as you customize:

• Will you use bourbon or rye? The original nineteenth-century Manhattan was meant for rye, which is brasher and spicier, but I just as often reach for smoother, sweeter bourbon.
  
• What vermouth will you use? The basic choice is an Italian vermouth, or sweet vermouth, such as Martini & Rossi or Cinzano. But there are so many excellent Manhattans that replace vermouth with a bitter Italian amaro such as Averna, Cynar, Punt e Mes, or Ramazzotti. Likewise, you can experiment with other types of vermouth. A Perfect Manhattan calls for a little dry vermouth. A Bianco Manhattan calls for bianco vermouth, which, with its vanilla and floral notes, is totally different than dry vermouth.
  
• Do not omit the bitters. I cannot stress this enough. The most common cause of a bad Manhattan is a poor bartender who leaves out the bitters. Most often I go for a couple of dashes of Angostura bitters, but there are excellent versions that call for orange bitters, Peychaud’s bitters, and others.
  
• Will you garnish the drink with a maraschino cherry, a lemon twist, or both? I would suggest making a batch of homemade
  preserved cherries
  or using real marasca cherries from Luxardo, rather than relying on the typical, fluorescent, artificial-red orbs.
  
• One last item: A Manhattan is always stirred. That is nonnegotiable.
  

BLACK MANHATTAN

Serves 1

2 ounces rye whiskey

¾ ounce Averna

1 dash Angostura bitters

1 dash orange bitters

Preserved or maraschino cherry, for garnish (
this page
)

Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full with ice. Add the rye whiskey, Averna, and both bitters. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry.

Adapted from a recipe of Bourbon & Branch, San Francisco

RED HOOK

Serves 1

2 ounces rye whiskey

½
ounce Punt e Mes

¼
ounce maraschino liqueur, preferably Luxardo

Preserved or maraschino cherry, for garnish (
this page
)

Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full with ice. Add the rye whiskey, Punt e Mes, and maraschino liqueur. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry.

Adapted from a recipe by Enzo Enrico of Milk & Honey, New York

NOTE:
If you substitute ½ ounce of yellow Chartreuse for the maraschino liqueur, you will have what is called a Greenpoint. If you substitute ½ ounce of Cynar and ¾ ounce of sweet vermouth for the Punt e Mes and the maraschino liqueur, you’ll have a Little Italy.