It’s hard to think of a drink that says Manhattan better than, well, a Manhattan. When Don Draper and Peggy Olson have a heart-to-heart at a bar on the night of the heavyweight title bout between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay, Peggy nurses a Manhattan. At least it looks like a classic Manhattan with its distinctive amber color and a single cherry in the glass.
Years earlier, Don and Roger Sterling stop by the Oak Bar on Central Park South after work one evening (season 1, episode 7; “Red in the Face”). (The Oak Bar has a Hollywood credit to its credit: it’s where Cary Grant’s character in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Roger Thornhill, is kidnapped.) Don is having one of his beloved Old Fashioneds and Roger one of his ubiquitous martinis as they eye the beautiful young women a few bar stools away (see Don’s Old Fashioned and Roger’s Martini).
The Oak Bar offered a recipe for one of their signature cocktails for this book, the classic Manhattan they served in the 1960s. Today, the Oak Bar also serves an updated version called the Maker’s Manhattan, made with Maker’s Mark (a bourbon whiskey), sweet vermouth, and brandied cherries.
As with many cocktails, it is virtually impossible to sort out fact from fiction when trying to discern the origins of the Manhattan. Legend has it the drink was first made for Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston’s mother, when she hosted a banquet for presidential candidate Samuel Tilden at the Manhattan Club in the early 1870s. This story has largely been debunked, however. Some say a Manhattan bartender named Black invented it in the 1860s. And The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (Oxford University Press, 2007) editor Andrew F. Smith says the cocktail was “created by an unknown mixologist,” probably in the 1870s. Whatever its origins, the Manhattan is one of the most popular cocktails ever made, and one of the most difficult to make well because everything hinges on both the types of whiskey and vermouth used and how they work in combination. When you taste the Oak Bar’s rendition, we think you’ll agree they got it right.
COURTESY OF THE OAK BAR, PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
2 ounces rye whiskey
1⁄2 ounce sweet vermouth
2–3 dashes Angostura bitters
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
YIELD: 1 DRINK