The Best Manhattan

Sit. Pour yourself a coffee. We're doing this right. The Manhattan. The BEST Manhattan. The greatest Manhattan in the history of Manhattans — and there have been a lot of Manhattans, more Manhattans than any cocktail invented in the borough of Manhattan, which is where it was invented, it's in the NAME, you can't make this stuff up — and most of them, the Manhattans being poured tonight at this very moment around the country, are DISGRACES. Sad little brown drinks in the wrong glass with the wrong cherry. The neon red one. The one that bounces. That cherry should not exist. It is a betrayal of the fruit.

A Manhattan is a serious drink. It is the suit-and-tie of cocktails. You don't garnish a Manhattan with an orange wheel. You don't put it on the rocks (well, you CAN, some people do, I respect it, but the proper Manhattan is UP, in a coupe, cold, like a knife). You don't use the cheap vermouth that's been open on the bar since 2019 — VERMOUTH GOES BAD. Scientists — and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest — they will tell you vermouth is a wine, wines oxidize, oxidized wine on the bar shelf is a SAD wine, a defeated wine. Statisticians have run the numbers. Vermouth lives in the fridge after you open it. Write it down. It's a rule now.

And the whiskey. Use rye. Rye whiskey. Bourbon is fine — bourbon is great, I love bourbon, bourbon and I go way back — but the original Manhattan is RYE. Rye gives you the spice, the bite, the dry crackle at the back of the throat that says: this is a drink for adults. People come up to me at bars, big strong men with the tears in the eyes, they say, 'Bigly, the Manhattan is so smooth, what's the secret.' I say: the secret is everything. Every step. The stir, the strain, the cherry. Especially the cherry. Get a real cherry. Luxardo. Brandied. A cherry with self-respect. It's just a fact.

That's a Manhattan. That's THE Manhattan. You pour one of these at 6 p.m. on a Friday, the week is over, the laptop is closed, the news can wait, life is good. You sip it slow. You do NOT chug a Manhattan — chugging a Manhattan is a small tragedy, an act of violence against a finished drink — you sip. You think. You appreciate the cherry. The cherry has been waiting for this moment its whole little cherry life. Let it have the moment. I'll see you next time.