Dark, tannic and faintly funky, the Suburban drinks sweeter and more brooding than a straight Manhattan, with Jamaican rum and ruby port deepening a spicy rye base. Orange and Angostura bitters frame the richness, the port lending plummy weight and grip while the rum's molasses funk hums underneath and a twist of orange peel brightens the nose.
Garnish: Orange Peel
Stirred · Coupe · Up
add
Combine rye whiskey, dark rum, port, and both bitters in a mixing glass with ice.
stir
Stir until well chilled and properly diluted, about 20-30 seconds.
strain
Strain into a chilled coupe.
garnish
Express an orange twist over the surface and drop it in.
The Suburban was a house creation of the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar around the turn of the century, and no individual bartender is credited with mixing it first. It takes its name from the Suburban Handicap, a horse race first held at Sheepshead Bay in 1884, and belongs to a cluster of Waldorf cocktails that saluted the racing crowd gathered around the Wall Street financier and stable owner James R. Keene. The recipe survives in the bar's own chronicles — Albert Stevens Crockett's Old Waldorf Bar Days of 1931 and the Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book of 1935, which calls for three parts whiskey to one part each of Jamaica rum and port.