If the martini is the undisputed king of gin drinks, the Manhattan rules the whiskey ones. And though I’m utterly intransigent about how a good martini ought to be made, I’m flexible when it comes to the Manhattan. Even in its innumerable variations, the deep and dark character stays intact. With brown-liquor season upon us, it’s the drink for right now.

That said, it’s a cocktail that requires a whole host of decisions. Rye or bourbon? Perfect (composed with equal measures of sweet and dry vermouth), or just sweet vermouth? Bitters? Garnish? Rocks? My advice is to try the Manhattan every which way (just not all at once), because different versions suit different moods.

Image

According to legend, the Manhattan was created some 140 years ago, at New York City’s Manhattan Club, for a banquet held by Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill’s Brooklyn-born mother. This tale has been debunked, but I still like to think it’s true, for the strong sense of time and place it suggests. I was born and raised in Manhattan, but it took a man from California to indoctrinate me into the cocktail’s cult. In my 20s, I was an unabashed Irish whiskey partisan. Frank, whom I met in graduate school and later married, was, at 27, already a Manhattan man. I thought it was wonderfully dashing that he had a signature cocktail, and that he was always ready, at any bar, to place a confident order. Frank tended toward bourbon more than rye, but he was game to change it up.