The history of the Manhattan cocktail can certainly be traced back to New York's Manhattan in the late 19th century, but the exact details are not known for sure.
The Manhattan Club in New York, which is still going strong as a 4-star hotel, claims that the Manhattan cocktail was invented there. It was first created, they say, in 1874 for a banquet being held there by Jennie Jerome to honor the politician, Samuel J. Tilden.
Tilden was Governor of New York and went on to run as the Democratic candidate in the 1876 presidential election. He became the first candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election. That 1876 election had all the drama, and more, of recent US elections.
1874 was also the year that Jennie Jerome, who was born in Brooklyn, married Lord Randolph Churchill of Great Britain, and became Lady Randolph Churchill. According to one biography, Jerome was already pregnant with their first child at the time of their marriage. That child was named Winston, and went on to become the British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, who led the country through World War II.
However, there's one problem with this story. On the date the banquet was held, Lady Churchill was in either England or France, but certainly not in New York.
The Manhattan was definitely around by the early 1880s as it was first mentioned by name in a New York newspaper in 1882. In 1884, two versions of the cocktail recipe were included in a book by O.H. Byron called The Modern Bartender's Guide. From then on, the Manhattan was a regular in books of cocktail recipes.
Another account explaining the history of the Manhattan cocktail comes from a bartender, William F. Mulhall. Mulhall worked at the Hoffman House, a famous hotel that used to stand on Broadway and 25th Street. He began working there in the early 1880s and around that time he said that the Manhattan was invented in the 1860s by a bartender named Black, who worked at a nearby bar on Broadway.
Ingredients:
- 2 oz Rye or Canadian whisky
- 3/4 oz Sweet red vermouth
- Dash Angostura bitters
- Maraschino cherry (Garnish)
