My Favorite Manhattan
i.e. (in my opinion) the best widely available ingredientsThere is no doubt about it, Rodney Muller got me into manhattans. Its a fairly simple drink that has a ton of flavor that bourbon folks (and even S/Os) can enjoy. Manhattans and old fashioned are probably the most popular bourbon cocktails. Here are some of my favorite,standard, off the shelf, widely available ingredients to use.Manhattan:
2 ounces bourbon
1 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Garnish: cherry

Bourbon: I drink pretty much all bourbon neat. Because of this, I do not like to use/dilute high end bourbons to make manhattans. I feel like $30-40 bourbons are good enough and not so high end that you are “wasting” it.
Vermouth: I have tried a few different vermouths, and Martini & Rossi Russo (sweet) just tastes better to me. It is a couple dollars more for a bottle than some of the others.

Angostura Bitters/ Orange Bitters/ Bitters: from their website: A cocktail cabinet without Angostura is like a kitchen without salt and pepper.” ANGOSTURA® aromatic bitters adds a layer of complexity, intensifies the flavor of other ingredients, counteracts the harshness of acidic contents and decreases the harshness of spirits. There is only one Angostura and orange bitters, you can find them at Meijer. They are fairly costly upfront, at 12-15$ for the larger size, but you use a dash (1-2 drops) so it will last a very long time.

Cherry: If there is one area to splurge, it would be on the cherries, namely Luxardo cherries. I highly recommend that you try the Luxardo cherries, they are amazing. If the glowing red cherry you get on top of a banana split is a Kia Metro, a Luxardo cherry is the Lamborghini Huracan (The luxardo cherries and Lambos hail from Italy  ) . They used to be hard to find, but Meijer and amazon carry them now, for about $15 a jar. Yes that is more expensive than the cheap glowing red variety, but 1-2 cherries a drink is around 30-50 drinks per jar.

In order to make your first Manhattan, you will spend some money, but after that, those ingredients will last you quite a while. There are also many variants (that I plan to discuss in future posts) that utilize mostly these same ingredients.

Hopefully you can try one soon.