Vermouth had a history long before the Italians and French dominated the market, starting as Greek alchemist Hippocrates' simple cure for intestinal worms as well as digestive and flatulence disorders. By the Renaissance, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria all claimed venerable vermut traditions, crafted in monasteries and appreciated by royalty. The great court of Wallenstein—now the Czech Republic—was impressed with a local 1630 vintage and bought up countless barrels. Britain's Queen Elizabeth I was said to take vermouth regularly before meals.

The masses embraced vermouth when it was popularized in café society. Rich, delectable modern sweet vermouth, invented in 1786 by Italian Antonio Carpano and floral, herbaceous dry vermouth,developed in 1813 by Frenchman Joseph Noilly began a tsunami of commercially-produced versions. Improved shipping methods offered Noilly the opportunity to export its vermouth, in 1844, along with its liqueurs and absinthe to New York. Cheaper transatlantic travel meant that Carpano, G&LCora, and the Dettone Brothers could display their Torino vermouths at the 1853New York Exhibition. It also meant that more German émigrés could introduce their homeland's tradition of vermouth consumption as bartenders in their new American home.

More than just about any other ethnicity,Germans dominated American bar operations during the late 1800s. Think of it.New York barmen Willie Schmidt and George Kappeler were not the only Germans who plied their craft in the city's famous watering holes. Between 1860 and1900, the number of bartenders and saloon owners west of the Mississippi rose from under 4,000 to nearly 50,000. Forty percent were recent immigrants, and twenty-five percent of those were of German descent. Thirty percent of saloon proprietors in Colorado at that time were German and no doubt knew the proper use of a doppelfassbecher as well as the joys of quaffing vermut. And if they didn’t, according to the San Antonio Express in 1886, there were a number of bartending manuals printed in English and German for them.

Aromatic bitters made landfall in the US long before vermouth: in fact, before the thirteen colonies became a nation.Richard Stoughton's aromatic bitters became, in 1712, the second compound medicine in the world to receive a patent. In less than two decades, his formula was being exported to the North American colonies. The next piece of the Manhattan equation, however, positioned itself when Dr Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert's Amargo Aromatico bitters arrived, in 1876, from Angostura,Venezuela.

American whiskey had been produced inMassachusetts and Pennsylvania during colonial times. But the ryes and bourbonsthat the United States became famous for did not emerge until the 1790s, whenScots-Irish emigrants headed to the "wild west" of Kentucky andTennessee practice their distilling tradition, exporting their wares from coast to coast. Preserved cherries were another traditional colonial favourite, foundin cherry bounce, a cordial made by steeping cherries in rum and brown sugar for six months.

All of these Manhattan ingredients converged on the island with the same name in the late 1800s. But where andwhen?

It is possible, as William Mulhall said in his 1923 Valentine’s Manual that “The Manhattan cocktail was invented by a man named Black who kept a place ten doors below Houston on Broadway in the sixties…” Approximately ten doors below Houston Street at that time was the Metropolitan Hotel, built on the site of a popular watering hole called Niblo’s Garden, a grand Broadway theater which was immortalized by poet Walt Whitman.The site was also remembered as the 1860 home of the Japanese Embassy, in whose honour Jerry Thomas created the Japanese Cocktail. The Professor’s bar at the time was also nearby.

What were these bars like? They were true spectacles: shrines to drink and art. To attract customers, the better places lined their walls with art that now hangs in some of the world's top museums. Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyrs once hung among many other paintings in the Hoffman House. Its proprietor Edward Stokes paid $10,010 for it at the time, or roughly $250,000 in today's currency: a fraction of the painting's current value. But we digress.

What is really more important: where a drink was first mixed, or where it secured its place in history? The Manhattan Club opened in 1865. The club's archives remember that the drink was invented there. However, it was certain that another drink born there was the one destined for immortality: the Sam Ward (yellow chartreuse over crushed ice in a cocktail glass, rimmed with a long thin lemon twist).

What about the whole Samuel Tilden story?There are too many questionable elements for this tale—that young socialite Jennie Jerome created the drink to salute him—to be true. On the evening of 29December 1874, a party was held at the club for Samuel Tilden and William Wickham, then governor of New York State and mayor of New York City,respectively, as well as Democrats' great hopefuls. Tilden was a longtime member.

The Club's food and drink was said to rise above the finest New York restaurant of its time, Delmonico's: save for the ice cream, which they bought directly from Delmonico's. The wine cellar was renowned. So, it would be likely that their bar was of the same caliber.

The night of the Tilden event, one Republican reporter raved about the food and drink. Although his exact words are lost, it is very possible he mentioned the Manhattan Cocktail. However,neither he nor anyone else who recorded the evening's events mentioned any member of the Jerome family, or for that matter any woman let along JennyJerome Churchill, attending the event. 

If it was born there, the Manhattan would have been created by the club's bartender. Drinks created by members were normally acknowledged such as the Manhattan a la Gilbert: whiskey, French vermouth, and Amer Picon). It could have made the list as early as 1865 whent he club opened, or any time prior to 1874. 

However, if you recall the date of Angostura Bitters’ arrival in New York, it would be impossible for a Mahtattan made with Siegert’s bitters to have been created until later. The club's recipe? Whiskey, vermouth, orange bitters. No garnish is listed. It is interesting to note that at the turn of the century, there was a panic amongst California olive and cherry growers that garnishes were a fading fashion in NewYork. Bartenders were no longer automatically garnishing drinks, unless acustomer asked. And the fruit growers searched for ways to reverse the trend. 

So what is the perfect recipe for this trueAmerican melting-pot potable? The best Manhattan we’ve had was made by Jake Burger at Portobello Star in London. Here it is:

50ml Sazerac Rye

15ml Carpano Antica

10ml Noily Prat vermouth

2 drops Angostura bitters

1 drop vintage Abbots bitters

Long stir, strain into a chilled coupette, garnish with a Griottines cherry.

The most memorable Manhattan in Manhattan was made for us by Michael Waterhouse, who has a unique style. He places lemon,lime and orange twists in a chilled cocktail glass, douses them with Angostura bitters and works them around the inside of the glass with a bar spoon. He then stirs 2 ounces of Maker’s Mark with one ounce of Carpano Antica vermouth.Before straining the mix into the glass he spills out the twists and excess bitters. Then he garnishes with three Luxardo cherries perched on the rim of the glass.

[This article originally appeared in German in 2009 in Mixology Magazine.]