I'll Take ManhaTTan
MATUS, VICTORINO
Casual I'll Take Manhattan A coworker once gave me a cartoon featuring two guys at a bar, one saying to the other: “When I was a child, I drank like a child, but when I became a man I put...
...Cocktails are alcoholic mixed drinks, which are usually a mix-andmatch concoction of at least two different liqueurs or spirits...
...In his Wall Street Journal column, cocktail maven Eric Felten categorizes the Old Fashioned under “Non-Girly Drinks for Guys With a Sweet Tooth,” while the Manhattan falls under “Female-Friendly NonGirly Drinks...
...It’s a drink for 65-year-olds,” Al replies...
...Indeed...
...This was the question posed by another colleague in his mid-twenties...
...Friday’s, including the New Ultimate Margarita, Ultimate Hawaiian Volcano, Ultimate Mudslide, and Ultimate Long Island Tea...
...Taking a taste test, I found the Old Fashioned to be flavorful but to a fault...
...The standard ratio is 4 gin or vodka to 1 vermouth, though some like it drier: Ernest Hemingway preferred a ratio of 15 to 1.) Nevertheless, the martini family is large, and the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Rob Roy are all members...
...The cartoon brought to mind my favorite mixed drink back in college: the Tom Collins...
...They have enjoyed an enormous revival in fashion in recent years, with many exciting new cocktail bars opening...
...So that would make it the manliest of the three drinks...
...But what do you drink when Bud Lights aren’t $2 a bottle and rail drinks aren’t $4...
...On the other hand, Al Fedorowsky, the bartender at Jimmy’s on K Street, doesn’t recall ever serving a Rob Roy to a woman in his 33 years of bartending either...
...We found ourselves in search of a definitive answer to that age-old question: Why don’t you order a real drink...
...As a brief aside, my 6’ 4” giant of a brother-in-law will order a Long Island iced tea even at a four-star restaurant, but considering he is from Holland, he gets a pass...
...I can’t imagine ordering a Tom Collins today...
...He said, “Vodka...
...Somehow I got it in my head that there was no better way to say “Hey, I’m a grownup” than by ordering that delectably sweet and citrusy blend of gin and Collins mix, plus an orange slice...
...We can easily eliminate a few cocktails, such as anything with the suffix “tini” other than a martini (as in Appletini or Crantini) as well as the entire drink menu of T.G.I...
...And I would sip it through a tiny straw...
...Because the drink is made with a muddler, by the time you near the bottom of your glass, your cocktail has become a Dole fruit cup with bourbon...
...VIcTorIno MaTus...
...Friends would make fun of me, but I insisted the Tom Collins was a most sophisticated drink...
...Hold on, you say: What’s wrong with an Old Fashioned...
...Maybe it all comes down to less is more (besides which, the fewer ingredients, the cheaper the drink...
...Mencken called “the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet,” so I shall bypass the issue of preference, as in gin or vodka, shaken or stirred, type of garnish, or the amount of vermouth...
...He had taken a liking to this libation, consisting of bourbon, Angostura bitters, a sugar cube, orange slice, and a cherry...
...First, let us define the term “cocktail” by turning to the ultimate cocktail book, The Ultimate Cocktail Book...
...Casual I'll Take Manhattan A coworker once gave me a cartoon featuring two guys at a bar, one saying to the other: “When I was a child, I drank like a child, but when I became a man I put away childish drinks...
...I asked Al, who quit drinking 16 years ago, if he were to have a “real drink,” would it be a Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or Rob Roy...
...Neither impressed my friend...
...Perhaps in our pursuit of “real drinks,” we’ve ventured too far in the direction of the cocktail...
...A seasoned bartender at Sam and Harry’s steakhouse, however, claims he has never served a Manhattan to a woman...
...I, on the other hand, much prefer a Rob Roy (whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters) or a Manhattan (bourbon, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters...
...It would be like ordering an Amaretto Sour or a Fuzzy Navel or an Old Fashioned...
...Al considers rating such drinks as the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Rob Roy to be arbitrary and notes that the one thing they all have in common is that they are “old drinks,” up there with the Sidecar, Gimlet, and Brandy Alexander...
...Of course an entire essay could be devoted to the martini, what H.L...
...This basically leaves us with whiskey or a martini...
...Which is all well and good...
...My “Old Fashioned” drinking friend, after conducting his own taste test, now declares his allegiance to the Manhattan...
...Soon, other coworkers got involved in the debate, each with his own opinion as to which cocktail was the more mature...
...The book continues, “Most of these cocktail bars offer a ‘happy hour’ in the early evening when drinks are half price—an added incentive that has no doubt added greatly to their popularity...
Vol. 12 • March 2007 • No. 25
