Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Manhattan!

What was the first cocktail you ever drank?

A beautiful, elegant Manhattan, photographed at the bar at Hemingway’s.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Today, let’s get back to basics and make the very first cocktail I ever tasted. Let’s take a moment to reflect on good beginnings, and the magic of a really good cocktail. Time to remember why you do this, and why I do this. Let’s make a Manhattan. Here’s the recipe. ACHTUNG CORRECTION, WE HAD THE WRONG AMOUNTS BEFORE GOOD LORD DO NOT DO THE PREVIOUS VERSION WE ARE FIXING IT NOW!

Manhattan

2 oz Maker’s Mark

1 oz Carpano sweet vermouth

2 shakes Angostura bitters

In a mixing vessel, add all ingredients. Add ice and stir until the outside of the vessel is cold. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a single Luxardo cherry on a pick. Drink at once, with gratitude.

It was before COVID, before my daughter’s Type I Diabetes diagnosis. I was flying into LaGuardia with my wife and kid to see my parents. It was bitterly cold in Cleveland. The flight from Cleveland was crowded, turbulent. And LaGuardia … well, LaGuardia at Christmas is its own circle of hell. My brothers and their families were coming and going during this time, so the actual logistics of getting to my parents was a carousel of folks hot-bunking at various apartments and cabins. Once we fought our way out of the airport, we had to stay in a hotel in Jersey for the night.

And when we got to the hotel, the fire alarm was sounding.

There wasn’t a fire; the alarm was just malfunctioning. And nobody knew how to turn it off. Obviously, rest after our journey was impossible. We grabbed some food and beer at a nearby Red Robin and waited, hoping that we would be able to sleep that night. Finally, eventually, the blaring sirens were silenced. We got some sleep.

The next day, we finally got to a quiet place. My brother and several of his friends own a collection of cabins in upstate New York, and we had a little bungalow all to ourselves. I described the horrors of the journey to my brother Jon. He made me a Manhattan, to settle my nerves.

It was the first Manhattan I had ever tasted. The first real cocktail I had ever tasted, really. I’d tried some weird martini-shaped concoctions in college, but this was the first fundamental, straightforward cocktail I’d ever tried. And it tasted so civilized — three simple ingredients, transformed into something rich and elegant, with such a small amount of effort. In one simple glass, I was reminded that the modern world wasn’t just fighting through airports and enduring bad chain restaurants and blaring alarms. The world could be a good place. Here was the evidence, in a glass. I was entranced. I had to know more.

I found Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold in my brother’s library. In his preface, Mr. Arnold says: “Cocktails are problems in need of solutions… How can I make a drink in front of me better? Taking cocktails seriously, as with all worthy inquiries, takes you on a lifelong journey. The more you know, the more questions you raise. The better a practitioner you are, the more you see the faults in your technique. Perfection is the goal, but perfection is, mercifully, unattainable.”

With that, I knew that I had found my career. I went to bartending school, worked country clubs, worked top-notch speakeasies. I mopped more floors than I can count. But I never stopped looking for perfection in a glass. I’m still looking. And the journey has never ceased to bring me joy.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. A sloppy, ungarnished Manhattan made in my kitchen pre-shift. It’s still delicious.

Maker’s Mark Bourbon: This is one of the few cocktails in the world that benefit from top-end ingredients. A Manhattan made with Maker’s Mark is good. A Manhattan made with $100 bourbon is better. Use what you have and what you like, but this cocktail is an excuse to play with the good stuff.

Carpano Sweet Vermouth: Vermouth needs to be chilled after opening; it’s fortified wine, not a liquor, and will go bad at room temperature. Replacing the vermouth with something creative is where many bartenders find new drinks; I’ve used a barrel-aged orange liquor before, and I’ve worked with bars that use sherry, port, Cynar, or more to take the Manhattan to new neighborhoods. But you need to understand the classic before creating a new twist on it. Try the Manhattan as it was meant to be. You won’t regret it.

Angostura Bitters: Another good place for creativity. I’ve used orange bitters, cherry-spiced bitters, and other tools in the past to make a new version of the Manhattan. Try the original first before exploring.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

OPEN THREAD!