This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York
The Manhattan cocktail — a potent and precise combination of whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters — was born about 150 years ago in the New York City borough after which it is named. Amber and glowing, especially when illuminated by a tabletop candle in a low-lit bar (as it should be), the cocktail has for decades served as a beacon of sorts, beckoning the thirsty to the saloons of the city.
The exact origins of the drink are apocryphal. (Drinks were flowing, memories fuzzy.) Some hold it was first mixed in 1874 at the Manhattan Club for a party thrown by Jennie Jerome, perhaps better known as Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill’s mother. But tales of the drink predate that bash. At any rate, by the time David A Embury solidified the six mother cocktails in his foundational tome, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks in 1948, among them was the Manhattan.
The Manhattan is an austere cocktail, and a well-made one is a paragon of proportion. Whiskey forms its backbone, giving it structure, smokiness and shape. Sweet vermouth blurs the whiskey’s edges, imbuing sweetness and its own assertive flavour. Bitters add potent herbal aromatics. A cherry and a bit of its syrup gives the drink a bit of festivity. What makes one better than another is execution: a bartender must be steady of hand and keen of sight to measure the jiggers just so. The drink must be stirred with sufficiently large ice (so that it doesn’t become diluted by rapidly melting cubes), while the cherry should be deep crimson and preferably brandy-soaked. There is no foofaraw or frippery.
Manhattans flourished in the mid-century, an era of strong drinks and burled wood. Over the years, it was supplanted by the martini, which affords a higher degree of loosey-goosey experimentation. One reason perhaps is that where the martini invites innovation, the Manhattan is more rigorous. Each element is integral. Swap the vermouth for simple syrup, and now it’s an Old Fashioned. Add cognac and Benedictine, and that’s a Vieux Carré. Either a Manhattan is or a Manhattan isn’t, but this is why I love it so. It is the Old Testament God of the cocktail world: strict but fair, bestowing praise but sparingly, its commandments carved in stone.
However, constriction by form isn’t always the enemy of innovation. Sometimes it spurs creativity. Around the city, bartenders are tweaking the Manhattan, making the drink theirs and, thankfully, ours too. Or, mostly, mine.
The Absolute Best Manhattan: Hillstone
378 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010
I am not a man of constancy. I’m indifferent to fashion, temperamental, bad at relationships and too careless to own nice things (headphones, watches, a house). But I do at least have a drink. A Perfect Rye Manhattan, up, with a cherry.
The drink is a hassle to order, since the person making it needs to know that “perfect” in this case means using equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, which yields a pleasurably stony cocktail. The rye too, as opposed to bourbon, yields a slightly more ascetic drink. This is mitigated by a cherry, which I prefer to a twist of lemon, because at heart I am still a child. They understand what “perfect” means at Hillstone.
Hillstone is one of those steak-and-sushi restaurants with little culinary ambition but lots of achievement. Perhaps the best way to spend a night in these waning days of our world is with a French dip sandwich and this rye Manhattan, up, with a cherry. The drink arrives generously poured into a martini glass. It’s ice-cold. The sandwich is overflowing with roast beef, and the ramekin beside it full of jus. Dip, chew, sip. You’re on top of the world. Opening times: Monday–Saturday, 11.30am–10pm; Sunday, 11.30am– 9.30pm. Website; Directions
Il Padrino at Locanda Verde Hudson Yards
50 Hudson Yards, New York, NY 10001
The Black Manhattan is a traditional Manhattan variant in which amaro, a bittersweet herbal liqueur, is used as a sweetening agent instead of the sweet vermouth. Black Manhattans tend to have a weightier mouthfeel, more velvet than silk.
At the new Locanda Verde Hudson Yards, the glistening offshoot of Andrew Carmellini’s Tribeca restaurant, the bartender Darryl Chan uses the Black Manhattan as his base, but tips his hat to another cocktail, The Godfather, an old-school drink made with scotch and amaretto. The Scotch in question is Johnnie Walker Black Label. To this he adds Lazzaroni amaretto, Foro amaro, Sagrantino Passito (a sweet wine from Umbria) and a fino sherry for a slightly nutty, silky and smooth drink. It’s decadent — the smokiness turned up; the aromatics supercharged — but beneath it all, you can still see the Manhattan’s soul. It’s an offer you can’t refuse. (Il Padrino is also available at Locanda Verde’s original location.) Opening times: Monday–Thursday, 11.30am–3pm and 5pm–10pm; Friday, 11.30am–3pm and 5pm–11pm; Saturday, 5pm–11pm; Sunday, 5pm-10pm. Website; Directions
La Pomme d’Or at La Tête d’Or
318 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010
Perhaps it’s a wink to New York’s nickname, the Big Apple. Perhaps it is simply the inclusion of Calvados, the apple brandy from Normandy, which softens the drink. But at French chef Daniel Boulud’s new steakhouse La Tête d’Or, a riff on a Manhattan — La Pomme d’Or, or the Golden Apple — steals the show. Made with 12-year Macallan aged in sherry casks (which imparts a profundity to the whisky), sweet vermouth (as is traditional), mole bitters (adding a hint of spice) and Calvados, the drink is strong enough to compete with the prime-rib trolley tooling around the dining room, the oceans of seafood plateaus and the cuts of arcane and recherché beef. But thanks to the tendresse of the Calvados, it is also gentle enough not to floor you after a few sips. Opening times: Monday–Saturday, 5pm–11pm; Sunday, 5pm–10pm. Website; Directions
Mini-Manhattan at The Tusk Bar
7 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016
Manhattans are strong drinks. I am charming after one; sloppy after the second. Thankfully at The Tusk Bar, which opened at the end of 2023 in the Evelyn Hotel, impressively bearded bar director Tristan Brunel created a two-sipper menu of classic, miniaturised cocktails. Among the best of these is the Manhattan, made with two parts Old Forester bonded rye, and one part a blend of vermouths (Carpano Antica and the more herbal Cocchi di Torino) with a dash of Angostura bitters. The drink is a perfectly wrought scale model of a Manhattan — well-balanced and classic. Have one. Have two. Still stand! Opening times: 4pm–midnight. Website; Directions
Samkus at Le B
283 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10014
One doesn’t belly up to the bar at Le B. One stands, until a white-coated server pushes a plush high stool to one’s behind, as gently and surely as a hydraulic press. Though Le B is small, just a corner of the West Village, the ambitions of chef Angie Mar’s restaurant are grand. The chandelier once hung at Brooklyn’s Grand Prospect Hall. Pithiviers and Wellingtons emerge from the kitchen. Only at the bar can one order a Le B burger, and the quantity is limited and rules are strict: one burger per seat per night. Have it with a Samkus, a glammed-up version of the Manhattan. This one, named after Antanas Samkus, Mar’s longtime lead bartender who passed away last year, synthesises the flavours of a Manhattan with Mar’s Asian heritage. The whisky is Japanese, the vermouth is swapped out for sherry and barley shochu and it is finished tableside with oolong tea smoke. It’s an earthy, aromatic, elegant execution. As the smoke clears, the chandelier sparkles and Manhattan has never seemed so perfect. Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday, 5pm–1am. Website; Directions
What are your thoughts on the Manhattan – and who do you think makes the best one in New York? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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