Brooklyn (perfect)

Name: Brooklyn (perfect)
Prep time: 3 min
Total time: 3 min
Yield: 1 serving
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: Rye whiskey — 45 ml (1 1/2 oz); Dry vermouth — 15 ml (1/2 oz); Rosso vermouth — 15 ml (1/2 oz); Amer Picon — 10 ml (1/3 oz); Maraschino liqueur — 10 ml (1/3 oz)

Stir ∙ 3 min ∙ 25.9% ABV ∙

The Brooklyn (Perfect) is a stirred whiskey cocktail of rye, dry and sweet vermouth, Amer Picon, and maraschino liqueur, served up in a cocktail glass. Rye leads with a dry, spicy backbone, the two vermouths splitting the difference between fruit and herb before Amer Picon's orange-bitter snap and a cherry-almond whisper close it out.

Ingredients

Servings

Garnish

Instructions for 1 serving

Pre-chill a glass
Stir all ingredients with ice: Rye whiskey 45 mlDry vermouth 15 mlRosso vermouth 15 mlAmer Picon 10 mlMaraschino liqueur 10 ml
Fine strain into the chilled glass
Express a lemon twist over the cocktail and discard
Garnish with a maraschino cherry

Tips

Stir all five ingredients with plenty of ice for a full 30 seconds; under-dilution leaves this spirit-forward mix too boozy and sharp.
Measure Amer Picon and maraschino liqueur precisely with a jigger since each is only a small fraction of the total pour and easily overpowers the rye.
If Amer Picon is unavailable, substitute a small amount of Torani Amer or Bigallet China-China rather than omitting it, keeping the bittersweet backbone intact.
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and express a lemon twist over the surface, discarding the peel, then add the maraschino cherry as garnish.

History

The Brooklyn takes its name from the New York City borough, part of a small family of early 20th-century cocktails named after the boroughs alongside the Manhattan and the Bronx. Its first known printed recipe appeared in 1908 in bartender Jacob "Jack" Grohusko's Jack's Manual, calling for equal parts rye whiskey and Italian (sweet) vermouth along with small amounts of maraschino liqueur and Amer Picon; later versions swapped in dry vermouth, the form popularized when the recipe was reprinted in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. Grohusko worked at a Manhattan bar owned by Victor Baccara, a Brooklyn resident, which is generally cited as the reason for the drink's name, though earlier and unrelated cocktails also calling themselves "Brooklyn" had already appeared in 1910, including one by actor and playwright Maurice Hegeman made with hard cider, absinthe, and ginger ale; none of these rival versions caught on. The Brooklyn (perfect) is a variation on this original that follows the common "perfect" convention used across whiskey-vermouth cocktails of that era, splitting the vermouth between its sweet and dry forms rather than using only one, for a more balanced middle ground between the drink's original sweet-vermouth build and its later dry-vermouth version.