Love the Manhattan { a riff on our most cherished cocktail }

Manhattans = Love. Enjoy a Black Manhattan to celebrate the month of l’amour.

Deep in the heart of winter, February rolls around with a promise of love to warm you up. Another perfect way to warm up is with the cocktail we truly love, the Manhattan. It’s the ideal antidote to a bitter-cold winter evening. It evokes age-old cocktail glamour and satisfies like nothing else. We love a two-to-one ratio of whiskey to sweet vermouth, with a dash or two of bitters. Beyond that, there is room to play. You can substitute Averna, a bittersweet Sicilian amaro, for the vermouth for a deep, rich Black Manhattan; or Mirto, a Sardinian sloe berry liqueur that adds almost a hint of menthol. And if you don’t want to stray too far from our favored recipe, you can enjoy an Orange Bitters Manhattan. Just make sure you have some orange bitters on hand and a more bitter vermouth, such as Punt e Mes. For brownie points, try mixing in a new whiskey variety for your own take on this enduring classic, or another fortified wine, such as Dubonnet rouge, in lieu of the vermouth. The possibilities are endless.



Manhattan
(Cocktail Buzz’s preferred ratio)

Ingredients
2 ounces rye whiskey (or bourbon)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (we like Carpano Antica)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
maraschino, brandied, or marascha cherry, for garnish.

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add cherry.

Black Manhattan
(adapted by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
2 ounces rye whiskey (or bourbon)
1 ounce Averna
2 dashes Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged bitters
maraschino, brandied, or marascha cherry, for garnish.

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add cherry.

Myrtle Manhattan
(created by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
3/4 ounces rye (we like Sazerac)
3/4 ounces bourbon (we like Eagle Rare Single Barrel)
3/4 ounces mirto (Sardinian or Corsican myrtle liqueur)
dash orange bitters
dash Peychaud’s bitters
maraschino, brandied, or marascha cherry, for garnish.

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add cherry.

Orange Bitters Manhattan
(adapted by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon or rye (try a wheated bourbon, such as Old Fitzgerald’s 1849 or Maker’s Mark)
1 ounces Punt e Mes sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura orange bitters
maraschino, brandied, or marascha cherry, for garnish.

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add cherry.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates are a perfect pairing for any of these Manhattans, with the bonus of being incredibly easy to throw together.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Ingredients
2 dozen dates
12 slices bacon (we like regular or low-sodium)
almonds (optional)

Method
You can either preheat oven to 350°F or use an outdoor grill, with hot coals. Cut the bacon in half and wrap a strip around each date. You can insert an almond into the dates through its natural hole if you desire, for added flavor. Place the bacon-wrapped dates (with the seam side down) onto a lined baking sheet, or a grill pan if using an outdoor grill. Bake for 15 minutes, until the bacon looks crispy. If using an outdoor grill, flip the dates, cooking about 5 minutes on each side, or until the bacon looks crispy. Remove from heat and add toothpicks if you desire.

Serves 6.

A version of the article first appeared on BarNoneDrinks.com.

Mixology Monday XXXVIII: Superior Twists“The Manhattan Gets a Makeover”

The Black Manhattan, a dark and rich cousin of the classic cocktail.

After years of stirring and shaking, infusing and mixing, we’ve come to the conclusion that the Manhattan is our favorite cocktail. We’re not saying we want one all the time—only when the need for a high-octane jolt of whiskey and vermouth dashed with a little bitters begs to be imbibed. But sometimes, when switching out rye for a bourbon or using Carpano Antica instead of sweet vermouth isn’t enough of a flavor-profile change, we like to open up the Averna and make a Black Manhattan. For those of you who have never had Averna, do. Averna is a Sicilian amaro, a bitter lower-alcohol liqueur distilled from and mixed with natural ingredients. It’s very Italian and is a part of many natives’ daily ritual, drunk with soda, to stimulate the appetite (think Campari). Some drink it after dinner, to aid the digestion. Averna in particular is on the sweeter side, very dark, with hints of caramel, cocoa, coffee, and menthol. Once considered solely a digestivo, Averna is now found in cocktail bars and restaurant bars throughout the U.S.

Making a Black Manhattan is simple: just use Averna instead of sweet vermouth. For our recipe, we like to use Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters instead of Angostura.

Black Manhattan
(adapted by Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients

2 ounces rye (or bourbon)
1 ounce Averna
2 dashes whiskey bitters
brandied cherry, as garnish

Method

Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add cherry.

The first thing you notice about the Black Manhattan is its color: shimmery almost-ebony. The second thing you notice is its aroma: complex, sweet, herbal. The third thing you notice, the taste. It’s a potent drink, stronger than a Manhattan, so be careful because you may not be able to stop at just one.

Once you’ve had a Black Manhattan, it’s difficult to get Averna out of your head (or tastebuds, rather). We started experimenting with Averna mixed with other spirits, and Steve came up with a recipe that puts Averna in the fore. He calls it Il Bravo, and its another dark cousin to the Manhattan, only he uses cognac.

Il Bravo
(created by Steve Schul)

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces Averna
1 1/4 ounces cognac
3/4 ounce. Grand Marnier
3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
lemon peel, as garnish

Method
Stir in ice for 30 seconds. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Add peel.

You can always lighten up Il Bravo by adding some ice and a splash of soda.

(hosted by Tristan, The Wild Drink Blog)

photo © Cocktail Buzz

Peaches! Peaches! Peaches!

The Smash Daddy, perfect for summer and early fall.

Well, if you haven’t figured it out already, peach season is coming to a close. So we implore you to run to the grocery store or farmers market and pick up some peaches ASAP. Sorry for posting so late in the peach season, but sometimes it takes a while to perfect some cocktail recipes. They’re worth the wait when they taste as delicious as these two rocks drinks.

First up is the Smash Daddy, a simple concoction made with some muddled white peach and one of our favorite new liqueurs, Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine (now called Catdaddy Spiced Moonshine). It’s a vanilla-, cinnamon-, and nutmeg-flavored Moonshine that tastes like someone just dropped a bit of wedding-cake frosting into a vat of virgin whiskey, and added a few other spices like coriander seeds and a sweetener like sorghum. The smell is reminiscent of juicy fruit gum. Confused? Well, trust us, you have to try it to believe it. It got Steve’s lazy ass out of bed when we were at Tales of the Cocktail, and he was happy that Paul played reveille so he could try this beguiling elixir at a morning tasting. Just a splash of soda, a few drops of peach bitters, and you’ve got a sweet sipper that may just turn into a gulper depending on how you take a shine to the Catdaddy. If you’re a fan of sweet tea or, say, and an Old-Fashioned with muddled fruit, think of the Smash Daddy as a Peach Old-Fashioned. If you only have regular yellow peaches, we won’t tell.

Smash Daddy
(created by Paul Zablocki, Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounce Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine
splash of soda
3 drops peach bitters
quarter of a white peach
peach slice, as garnish

Method
Score half a white peach. Muddle in a rocks glass, skin side up. Fill with ice. Add Catdaddy, then soda. Add bitters. Garnish with peach slice.

P.S. Don’t forget to eat the booze-soaked peaches. This is one drink where you want to eat the garnish after you’ve relished the last drop.

❤ ❤ ❤

Our second cocktail, one of Steve Schul’s creations, is the Tokyo Momo. Momo is Japanese for peach, and this rocks drink uses a muddled white peach shaken with Yamazaki 12-year Whisky to create a deep and complex combo. But that’s not all. Steve also added two unique liqueurs that complement the sweetness of a peach: Cherry Heering and Dumante Verdenoce Italian Pistachio Nut Liqueur. He decided on these two liqueurs for several reasons. First, he realized that the strong scotch-like flavor of the Yamazaki whisky needed a strong counterpoint to balance it, and Cherry Heering is such a liqueur to do the trick. Second, being a pie lover, he knew that bittersweet cherry mixed with peach is a great combination. But what other flavor would add to the complex fruitiness already brewed? That’s where the third element comes in. Nuts. Something nutty, like the refined beauty of the Dumante pistachio liqueur, with its complex nutty sweetness, was a perfect addition. A drop of whiskey bitters brings all the flavors together so that the Tokyo Momo tastes like you made a peach cobbler and let the juices run over the side of the pie crust. One sip and we proclaimed our love for the early days of fall.



Tokyo Momo
(created by Steve Schul, Cocktail Buzz)

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces Yamazaki 12-yr. whisky
1/2 ounce Heering cherry liqueur
1/2 ounce Dumante pistachio liqueur
2 drops Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters
quarter of a white peach
brandied cherries, or peach slice, as garnish

Method
Score the white peach, flesh side, making sure not to go all the way through the skin. Muddle in a shaker. Add the whisky, liqueurs, and bitters. Fill two-thirds with ice. Shake for 30 seconds. Strain into ice-filled rocks glass. (If you’re having trouble straining, be patient and keep shaking and straining. If you’re not that patient, then strain the mixture all at once through a sieve into a pitcher.) Garnish with brandied cherries on a skewer or a peach slice (or both).

photos © Steve Schul, Cocktail Buzz