The Wall Street Journal-20080112-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Food - Drink -- How-s Your Drink- Democracy In a Glass
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Food & Drink -- How's Your Drink? Democracy In a Glass
When critic David Ewen addressed George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" in his 1944 book "Men of Popular Music," he likened it to other essential products of the American imagination, including the skyscraper and the striptease. Better yet, he declared that Gershwin's signature composition was "as native in its flavor as corn-on-the-cob, or a hot-dog, or a Manhattan cocktail." High praise indeed -- for Gershwin and for the Manhattan, a drink that deserves its reputation as a benchmark of American ingenuity. It's a particularly apt metaphor: Just as "Rhapsody in Blue" combined the musical sensibilities of Storyville and Symphony Hall, the Manhattan mixes the everyman liquor, whiskey, with a refined wine aperitif, vermouth, for a cocktail comfortable in circles high and low.
The Manhattan's more elegant overtones are what appeal to Helen Fielding's fictional diarist, Bridget Jones, who, with a birthday approaching, mopes that the "size of flat and bank balance prohibits actual party." She decides to invite her friends over "for cocktails, perhaps Manhattans." That way, she will "then have given to guests something in manner of grand society hostess." Alas, the scheme falls apart: "Not sure what Manhattan is, come to think of it."
Though Miss Jones is clueless on the drink's composition, she's right that it's worthy of high society. But the Manhattan has always been welcome in more casual company, too. When the all-girl band in Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" throws an impromptu cocktail party, it is with delight that Marilyn Monroe finds they have both bourbon and vermouth: "We can make Manhattans!" They shake up the drinks in a hot-water bottle. In Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon," shamus Sam Spade ponders how to handle Joel Cairo with the help of "a bottle of Manhattan cocktail and a paper drinking-cup from a desk-drawer."
Even the Manhattan's competing creation myths straddle the demographics of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The most repeated story is that Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie, invented the Manhattan for a party at the social home of New York's Democratic political establishment, the Manhattan Club. A plausible claim of paternity has also been made for "a man named Black, who kept a place 10 doors below Houston Street on Broadway."
Jennie or not, the Manhattan Club does seem to be where the cocktail first got going in earnest, sometime in the 1870s. By the 1880s, the drink was well-enough known to spawn variations -- including the Martinez, which would one day evolve into the cocktail of cocktails. By the 1890s, the Manhattan was the most popular drink of the day. In 1893, the International Hotel Employee's Association held a waiters' picnic. During its cocktail race, each competitor brisked around a track carrying on a silver tray "a Manhattan cocktail, the glass filled to the brim." The man with the best time and the least spillage would win, the New York Times reported, but all who finished "will be allowed to drink their cocktails."
A decade later, this drink popularized by New York Democrats would scandalize Indiana Republicans. In 1907, Vice President Charles Fairbanks hosted a lunch at his Indianapolis home in honor of visiting President Theodore Roosevelt. The local temperance crowd expressed dismay that Manhattans had been served. Fairbanks's wife blamed the caterer, and the veep swore he had never touched the stuff. But the fallout was swift and sure: Fairbanks was voted down in his bid to be an Indiana delegate to the quadrennial Methodist Conference, held the next year. The Washington Post added its voice to the chorus of opprobrium. Its complaint? That the vice president had spoiled "forty drinks of good liquor with all those villainous fixings that go into the concoction of a cocktail."
The drink continued to scandalize. When Howard Gould, son of financier Jay, sued to divorce his wife in 1909, evidence of her dissolute behavior was entered into the record. Hotel room-service checks documented that her main activity, days on end, was the ordering of Manhattans.
Though the Manhattan has often been thought of as a rye whiskey cocktail, drinks historian David Wondrich notes that of the first four published recipes to specify a type of whiskey, two called for rye and two for bourbon. So use either in good conscience. As for the vermouth, both of my favorite sweet vermouths are made by Carpano. Its Punt-e-Mes is robust and earthy and stands up to about three parts whiskey; its Antica Formula is refined and elegant, and works best with two parts whiskey.
Bitters are a must, and you can't go wrong with Angostura. But some old recipes (including the Manhattan Club's) call for orange bitters. I like Manhattans with double dashes of each.
Cherry or no cherry? The earliest recipes are mute on this question; others prefer citrus peel. But by the turn of the 20th century the maraschino cherry had become emblematic of the Manhattan. In O. Henry's 1904 story "The Cop and the Anthem," Soapy the bum goes in pursuit of a nice warm prison bunk for the winter. He tries the old dining-and-stiffing-the-restaurant gambit. But instead of getting arrested, Soapy is tossed onto the "callous pavement" by a waiter "with an eye like the cherry in a Manhattan cocktail." Use a Luxardo marasca cherry instead of the phony, brightly colored things fobbed off as cocktail cherries.
Then, with a Manhattan in hand, put "Rhapsody in Blue" on the stereo and decide for yourself which is a more accurate and compelling tone poem on the theme of democracy in America.
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Manhattan
2 oz rye whiskey or bourbon
3/4 oz to 1 oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
-- Shake with ice and strain into a stemmed cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry.
