Spirit-forward and dry at the edges, the Brooklyn drinks like a straighter, leaner Manhattan, with dry vermouth where the sweet would be and rye carrying the spice and backbone. A whisper of maraschino softens the middle with a faint cherry-almond sweetness, while dashes of Angostura lend the bitter spark that keeps it taut, bracing and cold in the coupe.
Garnish: Maraschino Cherry
Stirred · Coupe · Up
add
Combine the rye whiskey, dry vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and Angostura bitters in a mixing glass with ice.
stir
Stir until well chilled and properly diluted.
strain
Strain into a chilled coupe, served straight up.
garnish
Garnish with a maraschino cherry.
The Brooklyn's beginnings never quite settled: one claim credits actor and playwright Maurice Hegeman with a 1910 drink poured at the Schmidt Cafe, close by the Brooklyn Bridge, yet his recipe mixed hard cider, absinthe and ginger ale and bears little resemblance to what carries the name now. The whiskey-and-dry-vermouth formula turns up in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930, which pairs Canadian Club and French vermouth in equal measure with a dash each of maraschino and Amer Picon, shaken rather than stirred. The drink came to sit among the cocktails named for New York's boroughs, and as Picon grew hard to find in the States, Angostura bitters became its accepted substitute.