Black Manhattan
The Black Manhattan asks a simple heretical question: what if the vermouth were replaced entirely by amaro? Todd Smith posed it at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco in 2005, chose Averna, and produced one of the defining drinks of the modern era. Rye and Sicilian amaro at the classic ratio, both bitters, one cherry, and a drink the colour of its name. The swap works because Averna is built like a vermouth that kept going: wine-adjacent sweetness, herbs and citrus peel, but darker, denser and bittersweet where vermouth is fresh. The Manhattan’s architecture survives intact while every surface of it changes, and the two dashes of bitters now read as accents in an already bitter landscape. It sits with the Hanky Panky and the Toronto in the small family of drinks that taught amari to speak cocktail, and it has moved more bottles of Averna than any of them.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Maraschino Cherry
Ingredients
60ml
The engine, and rye with conviction. Its spice is the only counterweight the amaro respects, where bourbon stacks sweetness on sweetness and tips the drink toward liqueur.
30ml
The whole idea: Sicilian amaro standing where the vermouth stood, with a wine-dark sweetness and a bittersweet finish that vermouth cannot reach. The swap is total.
1 dash
One dash of dark spice, now functioning as an accent in an already bitter landscape rather than as the drink’s only source of bitterness.
1 dash
One dash, lifting the Averna’s citrus-peel side toward the nose. It is the smallest measure in the glass and the easiest one to notice missing.
Instructions
Add the rye, Averna and both bitters to a mixing glass with ice.
Stir for 20 to 25 seconds.
Strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with a good cherry and serve.
Expert Tip
The swap is total. No vermouth remains in the drink, and splitting the difference between the two produces a muddier Manhattan rather than a better Black one; if you want both, make two drinks. Rye is the other thing not to negotiate. Its pepper is the only counterweight Averna respects, where bourbon’s corn sweetness stacks onto the amaro’s and tips the whole glass toward liqueur, and a hundred-proof rye makes the definitive version. If bourbon is genuinely all you have, ease the Averna back to 22.5ml to dry the drink out. And stir the full twenty-five seconds: there is a great deal of sugar in here and it needs the water to open.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Bourbon and Branch opened in 2005 behind an unmarked San Francisco door, and Todd Smith’s Black Manhattan spread from its menu through the revival’s network of bartenders faster than almost any drink of its decade.
Its timing was most of the reason. It arrived at the exact moment amari were moving from importers’ curiosities to back-bar staples, and it gave that category the one thing it lacked: a drink a whiskey drinker would order without being persuaded. For a generation of drinkers this was the door into the whole amaro category, and it is still the most efficient introduction to it.
Why Averna
Averna occupies almost exactly the structural space sweet vermouth does. Wine-dark sweetness, herbs, orange peel, a bittersweet finish, and enough body to stand up to whiskey at a two-to-one ratio.
What it brings that vermouth cannot is density and a genuine bitterness underneath the sugar. Vermouth is fresh and aromatic; Averna is dark, faintly cola-like and long on the finish. That combination is why the substitution reads as a complete redecoration rather than a replacement part, and why the drink tastes nothing like a Manhattan while behaving exactly like one.
Rye and Ratio
The classic two-to-one Manhattan proportion holds without adjustment, which is part of what makes the drink so instructive: one ingredient changed, everything else identical.
Rye is the correct engine and it is not a preference. Averna is sweet before it is bitter, and rye’s pepper is the only thing in the whiskey category that pushes back hard enough to keep the balance. Bourbon’s corn sweetness simply adds to the amaro’s and produces something closer to a liqueur than a cocktail. A hundred-proof rye makes the definitive version, because the extra strength buys back the dryness the amaro spends.
Other Amari
Averna is the reference and it is not the only option. Mid-weight amari in the same register make legitimate variations, each redecorating the drink slightly: Ramazzotti runs more herbal, Montenegro brighter and more floral, Nonino lighter and grappa-edged.
What does not work is going to the severe end. Fernet-style bottles have far too much menthol and bitterness for a two-to-one measure, and the drink stops being a Manhattan variation and becomes an endurance test. If you want to use one, treat it as a dash rather than as the vermouth replacement.
How to Serve It
Up, very cold, after dinner. The amaro half makes this a digestif wearing a Manhattan’s clothes, and it follows a rich meal considerably better than its parent does.
One good cherry, no twist, and the bottle of Averna left somewhere within reach, because the second most common response to a first Black Manhattan is asking what was in it, and the most common is ordering another.
The Spirit
Whiskey (Rye)The whiskey the American classics were written for. Rye is dry and peppery where bourbon is sweet and broad, and a Manhattan or a Sazerac built on the wrong one is a noticeably different drink rather than a near miss.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Black Manhattan?
A Manhattan with the sweet vermouth replaced entirely by amaro, classically Averna: rye, amaro, a dash each of Angostura and orange bitters, stirred and served up with a cherry. Todd Smith created it in San Francisco in 2005.
Can I use a different amaro?
Yes, and each one redecorates the drink. Mid-weight amari like Ramazzotti or Montenegro keep the balance; fernet-style bottles are far too severe at this measure and turn the drink into an endurance test. Averna remains the reference.
Rye or bourbon?
Rye, with conviction. Its pepper is the only thing that balances Averna’s dark sweetness, where bourbon’s corn sweetness simply doubles down on it. If bourbon is all you have, ease the amaro back to 22.5ml to dry it out.
Should I keep any vermouth in it?
No. The swap is total, and splitting the measure between vermouth and amaro produces a muddier Manhattan rather than a better Black one. The whole point of the drink is that a single ingredient changed everything.
Master the Techniques
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Manhattan
The Manhattan is the oldest documented whiskey cocktail in the American canon and the template for every stirred, spirit-forward classic that followed. It appeared in bar guides of the 1880s already described as an established drink, suggesting an origin in the 1870s. The most commonly cited account places its creation at the Manhattan Club in New York, at a banquet hosted by Lady Randolph Churchill in honour of presidential candidate Samuel Tilden; the account is disputed, Lady Churchill being documented elsewhere on the date in question, but the Manhattan Club association remains the most plausible origin available. What it established is the shape rather than the recipe: a base spirit, a fortified wine and a bitter, stirred cold and served up. That structure is the foundation of the Vieux Carré, the Boulevardier, the Rob Roy, and every other stirred whiskey drink that followed, and understanding it is the most direct route into that entire family. The sweet vermouth is the variable that most determines the finished drink. A stale or poorly chosen vermouth does not simply diminish the Manhattan; it defines it. The drink’s simplicity leaves the vermouth nowhere to hide.
Toronto
The Toronto is the drink that taught fernet manners. It appears in the bar manuals of 1922 as the Fernet Cocktail, whisky sweetened and seasoned with Milan’s most feared amaro, and acquired its city and its name via Robert Vermeire’s note that it was a favourite of the Canadians of Toronto. Canadian whisky being historically rye-led, the drink settled into its modern form. Structurally it is an Old Fashioned with the fear turned up: the sugar and bitters of the template, with Fernet Branca supplying the aromatic register a twist and a dash normally would. The fernet’s menthol and bitter roots run straight through the rye’s spice, the demerara rounds the collision, and the result is darker and more bracing than any standard Old Fashioned. It has become the standard second step in a fernet education, after the neat shot and before the deep end: enough Branca to taste the point of it, and enough structure around it to stay civilised.
Boulevardier
The Boulevardier was created by Erskine Gwynne, an American expatriate writer in 1920s Paris who published a monthly magazine of the same name for the city’s American community. Harry McElhone documented the drink in his 1927 book Barflies and Cocktails, attributing it to Gwynne. It is a Negroni with bourbon in place of gin, and that single substitution changes the drink more thoroughly than the swap suggests. Where the Negroni is botanical, precise and juniper-forward, the Boulevardier is warmer, rounder and more fruit-driven. Bourbon brings vanilla, caramel and a grain sweetness that gin does not carry, producing a richer balance that sits more naturally after a meal than before one. The ratio here runs slightly bourbon-forward at three to two to two rather than equal parts, because bourbon is heavier and sweeter than gin and equal measures can tip the drink toward cloying against a rich vermouth. It handles equal parts perfectly well too; adjust to the bottles in front of you.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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