Basic Cocktails

• 1 oz. Bourbon (Canadian or Kentucky)
• 1 oz. Dry Vermouth
• Two Dashes Angostura Bitters (more/less to taste)
• 1 Maraschino Cherry and Lemon Twist to Garnish

Cocktail Glass

The taste depends highly on the whiskey used for the drink, although in most cases there is a slightly sweet whiskey flavoring with a hint of dryness in the finish.

Pour dry vermouth into cocktail glass, swirl around the contents of the glass and dump the remaining contents. Stir whiskey and Angostura bitters with ice for thirty seconds (usually in the bottom half of a Boston Shaker or other shaker) and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with Maraschino cherry and lemon twist, serve.

A popular history suggests that the drink originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the early 1870s, where it was invented for a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston's mother) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. The success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, later prompting several people to request the drink by referring to the name of the club where it originated — “the Manhattan cocktail.” The original “Manhattan cocktail” was a mix of “American Whiskey, Italian Vermouth and Angostura bitters”.¹⁾