It’s Mixology Monday time again! This month’s theme comes from Fred Yarm at Cocktail Virgin Slut, our inestimable torch bearer for Mixology Monday. The theme this month is I’ll Take Manhattan. On the surface, the theme seems somewhat limiting. The Manhattan is one of the primeval cocktails: spirit, mixer, bitters. But from such humble ingredients deliciousness can be found. Read on to see where we ended up.

Our first thought was to sub something for the traditional bourbon or rye. We thought an aged rum would work, bringing the complexity, sweetness, and mouthfeel you need for the base spirit, but with a  different spectrum of flavors to offer.

Ten Paces at Dawn

• 2 oz funky aged rum (We used the Plantation Guadeloupe but any nice aged rum should work)
• 3/4 oz Amaro Lucano (Averna would probably work well here too)
• 1/4 oz nocino
• 1 dash Angostura

Stir all ingredients with ice. Rub glass rim with lemon peel, discard. Strain the drink into the glass. Garnish with brandied cherries

• Nose: Faint lemon candy, cinnamon, root beer, barrel funk, floral notes like pansies, caramel-y barrel wood.
• Palate: Sweet root beer to start. Bitter intermezzo between the intro and the mid-palate. Mid-palate is rum funk, caramel barrel notes, little bit of spicy walnut flavor. Floral notes going into the finish, which is warm and spicy with cloves and cinnamon. Hint of bitterness on the tail end of the finish.

Next, we went with whiskey, though not either of the traditional selections. As with the Ten Paces, we used a combination of amaro, liqueur, and bitters to get the balance of sweetness/bitterness that we wanted.

Park View

• 2 oz whiskey (We used the Westland Single Malt, we would recommend any non-smokey scotch, such as a Speyside.)
• 1 oz Amaro Montenegro
• 1 bar spoon Yellow Chartreuse
• 2 dashes cherry bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice. Strain into a glass. Garnish with an orange twist. Cheers.

• Nose: Orange, hazelnut, malt, oak. Hints of vegetal greenness (kind of like parsley) and cherry candy.
• Palate: Very silky texture. Intro is sweet hazelnut with faint resin notes. Mid-palate is more hazelnut, bitter nut shell, milk chocolate and toffee, with some green herbal bitterness underpinning everything. Little bit of spicy heat from the mid-palate to the finish of spice and a tiny bit of orange zest. Long spicy aftertaste with notes of wood and chocolate.

Thanks to Fred Yarm for hosting a great theme in our opinions. We have a large selection of booze here at Booze Nerds HQ, so limiting ourselves to a few ingredients forces us to come up with creative solutions. Fortunately, that’s something we love doing. We look forward to the other participants entries.