Equal measures of Cognac, rye whiskey and sweet vermouth, bound by a couple of dashes of Angostura, make a drink that reads like a Manhattan with the warmth and dried-fruit depth of brandy folded in. Served cold and up under an expressed lemon twist, it drinks brooding, spiced and quietly potent — the rye's bite rounded by the Cognac and the vermouth's dark sweetness.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Stirred · Coupe · Up
add
Add the Cognac, rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters to a mixing glass.
add
Fill the mixing glass with ice.
stir
Stir until well chilled and properly diluted, about 20–30 seconds.
strain
Strain into a chilled coupe.
express
Express a lemon twist over the surface to release the oils.
garnish
Drop the lemon twist into the glass.
No inventor is on record: the drink's earliest known printing, in Jerry Thomas's Bar-Tender's Guide of 1887, treats it as an established recipe and credits nobody, calling for a pony each of brandy, whiskey and vermouth, shaken and strained into a claret glass with a quarter slice of lemon. Its name points to Saratoga Springs, the Gilded Age resort and gambling town in upstate New York. A popular legend credits Michael Flannery of the Saratoga Springs Hotel in 1894, but that tale is unverified and comes seven years after the recipe was already in print. The Saratoga turns up again in later compilations such as The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), and modern bartenders have settled on stirring it rather than following Thomas's instruction to shake.