Ingredients:
- 1.5oz Heritage Whiskey
- 1.5oz Sweet Vermouth
- 2 Dash aromatic bitters
- 1 Dash cherry juice
Instructions:
- Mix ingredients over ice in tumbler
- Stir for 15 seconds
- Strain over ice or into martini glass
- Serve with Luxardo cherry
History of the Manhattan:
The Manhattan emerged during the great cocktail boom of the late 19th century, most likely in New York during the 1860s or 1870s. Unlike the Old Fashioned, which simply balances whiskey with sugar, water and bitters, the Manhattan introduced sweet vermouth, a fortified, aromatized wine, to the whiskey cocktail. That seemingly simple addition created an entirely new style of drink and helped establish the template for many classic cocktails that followed.
The exact birthplace of the Manhattan remains a matter of debate. The famous story claims it was created at New York’s Manhattan Club in 1874 for a banquet celebrating presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. The story became part of cocktail lore, but there is a significant problem: the woman supposedly hosting the party, Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill), was in England at the time. Historical records also show that the Manhattan Club was not yet located at the building associated with the legend.
A more plausible account comes from William F. Mulhall, a prominent New York bartender who later recalled that a bartender named Black created the drink at a Broadway establishment in the 1860s. Researchers have found evidence of a George Black operating the Manhattan Inn on Broadway during that period, making the story possible, though it cannot be proven conclusively.
What we do know is that by 1882, the Manhattan was established enough to be reported in American newspapers, and by 1884 it appeared in several major cocktail books. Early recipes already featured the essential combination of whiskey, vermouth and bitters.
More than 140 years later, that combination remains remarkably effective. Our Heritage Manhattan keeps the classic formula intact, allowing the character of the wine-cask-finished Heritage Whiskey to work with the sweetness and spice of vermouth, bitters and cherry. It’s a drink with a genuine place in the history of American cocktails—and a distinctly Virginia expression of that tradition.
