The Manhattan

2 ounces Maker’s Mark bourbon
1 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stirred with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass, garnished with a Maraschino cherry

Quite simply, my favorite cocktail. At once clean and smoky, sharp and sweet, sophisticated and strong. When I make these for myself I usually shake the hell out of it with ice because I like the fleeting effervescence swirling in the glass. When you have a muscle-bound spirit like bourbon, lightening it with bubbles adds a delightful dimension. But The Essential Cocktail says to stir it with ice so that’s what I did here. I love how it smells quite different than it tastes; it makes drinking it a thought-provoking experience. It culls from the drinker a series of pensive “oohs” and “hmmms” after sips. You KNOW you are drinking a cocktail when you enjoy a Manhattan.

Not unlike many origin stories related in The Essential Cocktail, my own “first Manhattan” story may or may not be apocryphal. A good friend of mine had taken a job as the night accounting manager at the Hotel Griffon in San Francisco. It’s a charming boutique hotel built in 1906 that overlooks the waterfront (I got that from Hotels.com). I met this friend for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant one evening…yes, she was a “special” friend, a sparkly-eyed woman of deep intellect, barbed wit, and puckish charm. A woman who had forgiven my childish actions in our long past history to such a gracious degree that this dinner melted into rhythm with the cracklingly romantic atmosphere of San Francisco at night. In the crowded, electric dining room, flanked by picture windows looking out to the winking lights of the City and the Bay, she suggested I order a Manhattan.

The Long Island Iced Tea

This doesn't scare you even a little bit?

I wonder how sheepish a look DeGroff had on his face when he put this in the Modern Classics section of The Essential Cocktail. He covered himself by looking down his nose at this drink as being fit for the basements of fraternity houses. Dude has never played Liar’s Dice at McGee’s in Alameda though so what does he know? Okay, well, that’s not entirely true. He comes up with a quite civilized recipe.

1/2 ounce each of vodka, gin, rum, and tequila. 3/4 ounce each of simple syrup and fresh lemon juice. 3 ounces of Coca-Cola. All of it over ice.

And yet, it is tasty. Completely unlike the one you’d get at your neighborhood bar. I KNOW it’s unlike the ones Rajiv the Bartender at the Veranda Bar in the Hotel Figueroa would make you. The Teas he made us had full ounces of each liquor and only a drop or two of cola. Good man, that Rajiv. The hero here is the freshly squeezed lemon juice. It tempers the sweetness of the Coca-Cola and The various liquors are really just there to punch you in the brain with their tiny but powerful little alcoholic fists. It’s not like you can taste the dry juniper notes in the gin, or the smoky vegetal flavor of the tequila. Just so you know, I used the Coca-Cola imported from Mexico. It’s made with sugar, like the original, and not with corn syrup. Thanks BevMoWeHo for stocking it. I hear you can get it at Costco as well.

My position on corn syrup is not that it’s “bad” for you, though it is more of a processed food than sugar. Processed foods are not really good for you. My problem with corn syrup is that because of government subsidies and its economical production, corn syrup makes things cheaper. You’d think that would be good, but what ends up happening is that we eat and drink more. More is bad. Eat less, people. It’s almost as simple as that. No, I’m not a doctor but people have been calling me Marcus Welby, MD since I was tiny. He was a character on television many years ago for you infants out there. Oh and get off my lawn.

Back to the Long Island Iced Tea….oh it’s gone. Never mind.

So the end is nigh on this project. I gave myself 100 days to make and drink 100 cocktails. That 100th day is January 20th, coincidentally the one year anniversary of my return to sitting up, standing up, walking, peeing while standing up, many things we may take for granted. What shall I bore you with once this booze ship has sailed?

One of the reasons I liked the title “Bent at the Elbow” was because of these guys. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Elbow…