The Manhattan: A cocktail power player for 150 years

This story is part of a partnership between “City Lights” / WABE” and Rough Draft Atlanta called “The Beverage Beat with Beth McKibben.” As a “City Lights” contributor, McKibben joins the program monthly to highlight her most recent Rough Draft story on Atlanta’s cocktail, wine, coffee, and nonalcoholic beverage scene.  

The Manhattan has always been a power player, ever since it hit the bar scene more than 150 years ago in New York City. 

This spirit-forward, stirred whiskey cocktail is bold and robust, mellowed by warm notes of caramel, vanilla, and black fruit from the sweet vermouth, which gives the drink its signature ruddy hue. A couple of dashes of Angostura bitters marries intensity with subtlety, instantly transforming the Manhattan into a perfectly composed drink and the embodiment of confidence and sophistication in a glass. 

This seemingly simple recipe now serves as the foundational formula for countless riffs on the Manhattan.

A cornerstone cocktail

Considered the first modern cocktail, initially concocted in the latter half of the 19th century, the Manhattan would go on to define an entire category of drinks. The cocktail’s simple yet highly adaptable recipe is the secret to its longevity.   

Greg Best, a veteran Atlanta bartender and partner in Michelin-recognized Krog Street Market restaurant Ticonderoga Club, agrees.

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“It was the most ingenious and simple combination of flavors. It hit the root of what makes a cocktail, a cocktail,” Best said. “The perfect integration of sweetness from a fortified wine. The aromatic bitters. Then you have the bold spirit, depending on which story you believe, was most likely a rye whiskey.

“It’s well balanced and has a memory-building flavor profile,” he added.

Who invented it?

Most cocktail experts believe that the Manhattan originated in New York City between the mid-1860s and early 1880s. But precisely when, where, and by whom are all up for debate. 

There are two theories on the origin of the Manhattan. However, one theory appears more plausible than the other. 

The less accepted theory credits the creation to Dr. Iain Marshall, who whipped up the cocktail for a December 1874 banquet hosted by American-born British socialite Lady Randolph Churchill (Winston Churchill’s mother) in honor of Democratic presidential candidate Samuel Tilden. The drink bears the name of the Manhattan Club where the banquet took place. 

There’s just one problem. 

Lady Randolph was still recovering from giving birth a month prior to the future statesman and British prime minister. 

It’s highly unlikely she was at the event and not allowed to travel overseas – an arduous, often stormy journey by steamship across the Atlantic even in luxury accommodations enjoyed by first-class passengers like Lady Randolph. 

The most likely scenario credits a bartender simply known as “Black,” who supposedly invented the Manhattan around the same timeframe at a bar situated on Broadway south of Houston Street. 

Lending further credence to the second theory, by the time the Manhattan was first mentioned in print in 1882, it was already a bonafide hit amongst tipplers of the day. 

Mystery solved? Maybe. 

Award-winning cocktail writer and dogged researcher David Wondrich may have solved the mystery of the man said to be behind the Manhattan, whose first name always appears conspicuously absent from any mentions in print.

A few years ago, Wondrick dug into the New York City archives in search of business records from the time around the Manhattan’s creation. He located a man by the name of George Black who happened to own a bar called the Manhattan Inn on Broadway from 1874 until he died in 1881.

Rye versus bourbon

The cocktail we know as the Manhattan today comprises two ounces of whiskey, one ounce of sweet vermouth, and two dashes of Angostura bitters, sometimes garnished with a brandied or candied cherry.

There are myriad variations on the drink, too, including other classics like the Remember the Maine sporting absinthe and cherry liqueur, the scotch-based Rob Roy, and the Brooklyn, a cross between the Manhattan and the Martinez made with rye, dry vermouth, Amer Picon, and maraschino liqueur. 

But the Reverse Manhattan may be the closest relative to the original 19th-century version of the cocktail, a two-to-one ratio favoring sweet vermouth rather than whiskey.

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Then there’s the question of whether to favor rye as the base spirit (widely accepted as the whiskey used in the original version) or bourbon. 

Best said his tastes have changed over the years, resulting in a flip from preferring the spicy, peppery notes of rye to the mellower, malty flavor characteristics of bourbon. 

“When I was a younger bartender, I was obsessed with the idea that the Manhattan should be made with rye because that would’ve been more historically probable,” Best explained.

“As I’ve grown and evolved as a bartender, I’ve come to understand that the sweet caramel and rich maple notes in a good bourbon have all those wonderful malty, coffee characteristics and integrate more cohesively with a variety of different fortified wines or vermouth,” he continued.

Whiskey proof matters

Higher proof ryes and bourbons provide a firm framework for the Manhattan, allowing the sugars and richer, fuller body of the sweet vermouth (a fortified wine) to build off the whiskey as the base spirit rather than overwhelm it with stronger flavors, lifting the drink and adding dimension. 

For the Ticonderoga Club Manhattan, Best uses Old Forester 100-proof bourbon and the Italian vermouth Alessio Chianto.

“It’s a 50/50 split instead of a classic two-to-one or three-to-one. We use a barrel-proof bourbon – Old Forester 100 – and a vermouth Chianto made from very fine Barolo wines.”

These particular Italian vermouths provide more structure to the Manhattan as Chianto wines are big, bold, and old (aged and rested in wood), and contain more aggressive botanical profiles due to the aromatization process.

Don’t forget the bitters

The all-important third ingredient is bitters, measured in dashes rather than ounces.

Without bitters, there is no Manhattan. 

Bitters are the amplifiers, the ties that bind, the mediators bringing harmony to the the cocktail, allowing the happy mingling of ingredients without one overpowering the other.

“A good high-proof whiskey can add some backbone to the drink and robust character,” Best said. “Whiskey creates the frame that the mannequin is built on. The fortified wine is like the flesh or body type of the mannequin built on that frame. The bitters is the outfit you put on it.”

In other words, bitters thread together the whiskey and vermouth, intensifying the flavors of the individual ingredients like salt and pepper or seasoning in a soup. 

The Ticonderoga Club Manhattan uses what Best described as the “holy trinity” of bitters.

A dash of Regans’ orange bitters offers hints of zest and citrus. A dash of Peychaud’s plays up the ripe berry notes already present in the Manhattan, thanks to the sweet vermouth. Finally, a dash of Angostura coaxes out those warm cooking spices that linger on the palate after each sip. 

Stirred over ice until chilled and poured over fresh ice into a rocks glass or coup, Best then expresses an orange peel over the Manhattan and finishes it with a candied cherry.

Perfect.