A stirred drink from The Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide (1905), the Automobile Cocktail consists of equal parts Scotch, Old Tom gin, and Italian vermouth, plus a little gum syrup and orange bitters. I took this template and subbed in apple brandy for the Scotch, using alpine amaro in place of bitters, and sweetening with fig syrup. It’s Martinez-esque, but feels perfect for November with apple and pronounced piney notes. “Motor wagon” was a term used by some early car makers.

This drink is essentially a Vieux Carré with coffee liqueur subbed in for the Bénédictine, but with a touch of absinthe–influenced by both the Sazerac and Cocktail à la Louisiane. The cocktail bears a resemblance to my After-Dinner Manhattan from a few years back, which I designed for a customer who was craving coffee in her nightcap.

There are several pre-Prohibition era drinks that bear the name “Blackthorn,” “Black Thorn” or “Blackthorne,” hence the numeral after the title. This version takes some of the ingredients from the English (gin and/or sloe gin) and Irish (Irish whiskey) versions and applies an equal parts structure. An optional barspoon of peaty Scotch makes this Manhattan cousin slightly smoky, if that’s your thing.

This was the eponymous cocktail from my Lords of Misrule series (December 2020). It celebrates old-fashioned flavors of the season and, by extension, references the late medieval / early modern English and Scottish Christmas traditions. This batch recipe is meant to be divided into small bottles and adorned with little tags, or to be mixed and kept on your bar so that anyone who comes into your home during the holiday season may partake in a festive cocktail.

I’m not a huge fan of the oft recycled origin stories for cocktails, but I have a soft spot for the one behind the Bentley, which inspired this cocktail. The British racing team won Le Mans in 1927 and the celebration at the Savoy included a signature cocktail built on Calvados and Dubonnet rouge. I took the original formula and added dimension with flavors of juniper, tea, citrus, and black pepper.

I’m challenging you all to come up with your own house Manhattan; or a new favorite Manhattan; or your fall 2021 Manhattan! Whatever you’re seeking, I hope these guidelines help you find it.

Apple brandy Manhattans are one of the most delicious (and fall-appropriate) branches of the family tree. We have a great triumvirate here: the dry Star (Harry Johnson, 1900), the sweet Star (George Kappeler, 1895), and the Marconi Wireless (Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, 1935).

The Manhattan was a disparate, but powerful, force for the first thirty or so years of its existence. In the years just before Prohibition, and through the ‘30s, the recipe begins to solidify its 2:1 ratio, the bitters overwhelmingly Angostura, and the garnish is usually a cherry.

The earliest versions of the Manhattan resemble quite closely the original Cocktail (spirits, sugar, water, bitters) and feature a split base of rye and Italian (sweet) vermouth. This is an excellent example, taken from the second edition of Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual.

This is the cocktail I came up with on the spot during our September 2021 video shoot when I realized I hadn’t developed a recipe to use as the example for the Manhattan Challenge. Love it to this day and still make it!

This drink was created at the Waldorf in honor of an 1894 operetta about a Scottish folk hero. A few years ago, I ordered a Rob Roy from my friend Alex Caffall at Fort Defiance; she said she always made hers “perfect,” i.e. splitting the vermouth between sweet and dry. I’ve preferred them that way ever since.

This was the eponymous cocktail from my Lords of Misrule series (December 2020). It celebrates old-fashioned flavors of the season and, by extension, references the late medieval / early modern English and Scottish Christmas traditions. This batch recipe is meant to be divided into small bottles and adorned with little tags, or to be mixed and kept on your bar so that anyone who comes into your home during the holiday season may partake in a festive cocktail.

This Manhattan variant is inspired by Harry Johnson’s Manhattan from the 1900 edition of his book. The original features the addition of Curaçao or absinthe, so I plugged crème de cacao into that slot, which gives the cocktail a luscious texture. I’ve stuck with Johnson’s choice of garnish, a simple expressed lemon twist, which plays off the deep base notes of the chocolate and quinquina.

I came up with this one when a customer at Gigantic requested something for their last drink of the night and alluded to a craving for coffee. I thought I’d combine three of my favorite after-dinner drinks, Cognac, coffee and amaro, in a Manhattan-inspired format. The basic idea comes from early versions of the Manhattan from the late nineteenth century. But it also has commonalities with the Hanky Panky or the Fanciuli, wherein a Manhattan skips the bitters in favor of amaro.