Brooklyn

Rye, dry vermouth, maraschino, and Amer Picon - the modern standard Brooklyn, drier and more bitter-edged than the sweet-vermouth 1908 original.

The Brooklyn is a pre-Prohibition rye cocktail from the family of New York borough-named drinks that grew up alongside the Manhattan. It was first printed in Jacob A. Grohusko's Jack's Manual (1908), though in a form different from the one most bartenders pour today: Grohusko's original called for equal parts rye and Italian (sweet) vermouth. The dry-vermouth version served here - rye whiskey, dry vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and Amer Picon - traces to Jacques Straub's 1913 manual, which reprinted the drink with French dry vermouth in place of the sweet, most likely a misreading of the "Ballor" brand Grohusko had named; Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book carried the dry version forward, and it became the standard. Amer Picon, a bitter-orange French aperitif whose formula Gaetan Picon created in 1837, gives the drink its defining orange-edged bitterness and is also its hardest-to-source component: the modern product was reformulated and American imports discontinued, so bartenders substitute bitter-orange amari such as Amaro Ciociaro, Ramazzotti, or Torani Amer. The Brooklyn is now one of the most celebrated rediscovered pre-Prohibition classics, proving the Manhattan template works just as well with dry vermouth and bitter orange as it does with sweet vermouth and aromatic bitters.