Algonquin
An Algonquin is 60ml of rye whiskey, 22.5ml of dry vermouth and 22.5ml of fresh pineapple juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with a pineapple wedge or a lemon twist. About 2.8 UK units. It looks like a Manhattan and behaves like a sour. Dry vermouth takes the place of sweet, bitters go altogether, and pineapple does the softening, with acid as much as sugar. Fresh juice also foams under a hard shake, so the drink arrives with a fine head that no stirred whiskey drink has. The name is the Algonquin Hotel’s, on West 44th Street in New York, where Dorothy Parker’s Round Table met for lunch through the 1920s. The earliest printed recipe found is in G. Selmer Fougner’s Along the Wine Trail of 1935: two parts rye to one each of French vermouth and pineapple juice. Nothing links the drink to the Round Table beyond the address.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Pineapple wedge and Lemon twist
Ingredients
60ml
A straight rye at 40 to 50% ABV. Its pepper keeps the pineapple in check; bourbon makes a rounder, sweeter drink with less edge.
22.5ml
French-style dry vermouth at about 18% ABV, opened within the month and kept in the fridge. Sweet vermouth would add sugar to fruit that already brings its own.
22.5ml
Pressed or blended from a ripe pineapple and strained the same day. Its acid balances the drink and its proteins make the foam; carton juice loses both to heat treatment.
Instructions
Chill a coupe.
Add the rye, dry vermouth and fresh pineapple juice to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled coupe.
Garnish with a pineapple wedge on the rim, or express a lemon twist over the top.
Our version
Rye, dry vermouth and fresh pineapple at 60ml, 22.5ml and 22.5ml, shaken. The earliest printing found, G. Selmer Fougner’s Along the Wine Trail (1935), gives two parts rye to one each of French vermouth and pineapple juice; we pour less vermouth and juice so the rye leads.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Use fresh pineapple juice, pressed or blended and strained the same day. Juice from a carton has been heat-treated, which flattens its acidity and takes away most of the foam the shake is meant to raise. Shake harder than you would for a lemon sour. The head is part of the drink, and a lazy shake leaves a thin, watery layer instead of a fine one. Double strain to catch the pulp. Keep the dry vermouth in the fridge and finish it within a month of opening. At 22.5ml it is a fifth of the drink, and a tired bottle tastes flat and faintly sour against the rye.
Behind the Algonquin
Flavour Profile
A Hotel Name and a 1935 Recipe
The Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street gave the Round Table its lunch table from 1919. Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and their circle met there through the 1920s, which is why the hotel’s name still carries a literary weight.
The drink is harder to place. The earliest printed recipe found is in G. Selmer Fougner’s Along the Wine Trail, published in 1935, two years after Repeal: two parts rye, one part French vermouth, one part pineapple juice. Later books carried it on, and the revival of the 2000s brought it back onto bar lists. A link to the Round Table is often suggested and never shown.
Pineapple Does the Softening
In a Manhattan, sweet vermouth and bitters round the whiskey. The Algonquin drops both. Dry vermouth brings herbs and a little wine, and pineapple brings the sugar and acid that make rye easy to drink.
Pineapple is sharp as well as sweet, which is why it works where orange or apple would make the drink cloying. The acid meets the rye’s pepper and the vermouth’s bitterness, and the drink finishes drier than its fruit suggests.
The Shake Makes the Head
Convention says spirit and vermouth are stirred. Fresh pineapple overrides it. The juice carries proteins that trap air under a hard shake, and the drink pours with a fine, pale head, much as a sour with egg white does, though no egg is involved.
That head is why the juice has to be fresh. Heat-treated juice from a carton barely foams, and its acid is duller, so the drink loses its texture and its balance together.
Our Measures, the 1935 Measures and a Manhattan
The Algonquin as Fougner printed it, as we make it, and our Manhattan
Whiskey
- Fougner, 1935
- Two parts rye
- Our Algonquin
- 60ml rye
- Our Manhattan
- 50ml rye
Vermouth
- Fougner, 1935
- One part French (dry)
- Our Algonquin
- 22.5ml dry
- Our Manhattan
- 20ml sweet
Pineapple juice
- Fougner, 1935
- One part
- Our Algonquin
- 22.5ml, fresh
- Our Manhattan
- None
Bitters
- Fougner, 1935
- None
- Our Algonquin
- None
- Our Manhattan
- One dash Angostura
Method
- Fougner, 1935
- Not stated
- Our Algonquin
- Shaken 10 to 12 seconds
- Our Manhattan
- Stirred 20 to 30 seconds
UK units
- Fougner, 1935
- Not stated
- Our Algonquin
- About 2.8
- Our Manhattan
- About 2.3
| Element | Fougner, 1935 | Our Algonquin | Our Manhattan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whiskey | Two parts rye | 60ml rye | 50ml rye |
| Vermouth | One part French (dry) | 22.5ml dry | 20ml sweet |
| Pineapple juice | One part | 22.5ml, fresh | None |
| Bitters | None | None | One dash Angostura |
| Method | Not stated | Shaken 10 to 12 seconds | Stirred 20 to 30 seconds |
| UK units | Not stated | About 2.8 | About 2.3 |
Our measures pull the vermouth and juice back from Fougner’s equal halves. At 60ml, 30ml and 30ml the drink is longer and fruitier; at 22.5ml each, the rye stays in front and the pineapple reads as acid before sweetness.
How to Serve It
Straight up, in a coupe from the freezer, as soon as it is strained, while the head is still standing. A pineapple wedge on the rim says what is in the glass; a lemon twist gives a sharper nose and suits a drier rye.
For the sweet-vermouth original, make a Manhattan; for rye with dry vermouth and maraschino, a Brooklyn.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Whiskey (Rye)Rye whiskey, in American law, takes at least 51% of its grain from rye and its colour from new charred oak, and goes into bottle at a 40% ABV minimum; our recipes take 40% as the figure. Rye makes a drier, spicier, more peppery spirit than corn, which is why stirred classics such as the Manhattan, Vieux Carré and Brooklyn are written for it. It appears in 23 of our recipes.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in an Algonquin?
Was the Algonquin made for the Round Table?
Why is it shaken when it looks like a Manhattan?
Can I use tinned or carton pineapple juice?
Why dry vermouth rather than sweet?
Should I use the 1935 proportions?
How strong is an Algonquin?
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Manhattan
A Manhattan is 50ml of rye whiskey, 20ml of sweet vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, with a cocktail cherry. Those are the IBA’s measures, five parts whiskey to two of vermouth. About 2.3 UK units. The most repeated origin story puts it at New York’s Manhattan Club in the 1870s, at a banquet given by Lady Randolph Churchill; she was in France at the time, so the story is unlikely. What is established is that the drink was in print by 1884, in guides by O.H. Byron and Charlie Paul. With so little in the glass, the vermouth decides it. Twenty millilitres is over a quarter of the drink, and a bottle opened months ago tastes flat and sour against the rye. Keep it in the fridge and replace it within about four weeks.
Brooklyn
A Brooklyn is 60ml of rye whiskey and 22.5ml of dry vermouth, with 7.5ml each of maraschino liqueur and Averna and two dashes of orange bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass with a cherry. About 3.3 UK units. The Averna and orange bitters stand in for Amer Picon, the French bitter orange aperitif the old recipes call for. Picon has been reformulated since, so the bottle the drink was written for is gone, and any Brooklyn poured now is a reconstruction. The earliest printed Brooklyn is in Jacob Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual, 1908, as equal parts rye and Italian vermouth with a dash each of Picon and maraschino. By 1913 Jacques Straub was making it with French, or dry, vermouth, and the revival settled on that drier reading.
Old Fashioned
An Old Fashioned is 45ml of bourbon, one sugar cube, two dashes of Angostura bitters and a few dashes of water. The sugar and bitters are muddled in a rocks glass until the cube dissolves, then ice goes in, the bourbon goes over it and the drink is stirred for 15 to 20 seconds. Orange peel is expressed over the top. About 1.9 UK units. Those are the IBA’s ingredients, which allow rye in place of bourbon. Only the sugar and bitters are muddled: no orange flesh, no cherry. The recipe predates the name. When a newspaper in Hudson, New York, defined the cocktail in 1806, it described spirits, sugar, water and bitters, a bittered sling. The name came later in the century, as bartenders added liqueurs to the format and drinkers who wanted it plain are said to have asked for one made the old-fashioned way.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026