The Secret to Mastering Your Cocktail Order

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Every time I have a glass of Fernet, for example, I am reminded of other amari I have drunk (Montenegro, Nonino and Cynar) writing in front of the Duomo in Crema, Italy. That image from my past sparks fond memories of the many frozen Cynar spritzes I’ve enjoyed with friends at Bar Pisellino in the summer. Those bubbles float back to my champagne years, when a colleague and I would go to the underground Flûte in Midtown for weekly Champagne Tuesdays. Another wine that I love is sherry, which reminds me of a martini I had in Our/New York, a bar and vodka distillery that became my after-work watering hole for a couple of years (the martini was “dirty” from a splash of sherry). The bar manager at the time, Rustun Nichols, showed me that my favorite martini was actually a 50/50, an evolution of the Bond-inspired Vesper that I thought I loved but found difficult to swallow in my early 20s. Now in my 30s, a 50/50 goes down easily.

Your own journey doesn’t have to start at a bar, but a bar, and the person behind it, is a great place to start. While at the Savoy in London, Hirsch told his bartender that he liked Old-Fashioneds and Manhattans served strong, that he liked his cocktail to “hit him a bit”, but that he wanted something more interesting. “What do you suggest?” he asked him.

That is a good question. And he led Hirsch to find his new favorite: the Vieux Carré, a heady blend of rye, cognac, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, and Peychaud’s bitters.

Lamar Curtis, a bartender at On the Rocks, a cozy whiskey bar in Hell’s Kitchen, suggests starting simple: “If you know what base liquor you like, you can’t go wrong with the classics.”

On the Rocks is owned by Howard Ostrofsky, who, after retiring in 2008, wanted to establish a global destination for whiskey lovers, not just a local watering hole. A few years later, he opened the bar, where you can find him sitting in a corner a couple of times a week. And it was there, over 10 years ago, that I started drinking Old-Fashioneds, learning what happens to good whiskeys when you add a little sugar and bitters. They are rounded at the edges. I then moved on to Manhattans, a short but powerful phase that helped me return to my original sin: double scotch, single malt.

Some whiskey cocktails call for two ounces of liquor, but a three-ounce pour (a double Scotch) fills a single glass very well. I found that swapping out the rye for Scotch in a classic Manhattan turns the cocktail into a drier, musky Rob Roy, named after Scottish folk hero Robert Roy MacGregor. The Waldorf Astoria is said to have invented the drink; the tradition is to use cocktail cherries to garnish the standard version (with sweet vermouth). For the versions called “dry” (with dry vermouth) and “perfect” (with both sweet and dry vermouth): a lemon twist instead of cherries. Use any garnish you like, but I found that the essential oils from a fresh orange zest add a deeper richness that those from a lemon don’t.

Over time, one thing becomes clear: when it comes to finding your drink, the problem is often in the details.

audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro.