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. The Oxford Companion says Picon’s strength fell from about 40% ABV to 38% in the 1920s, 27% in the 1970s and 18% in 1989, and Punch says it is still largely unavailable in the United States; in our view any Brooklyn poured now is a reconstruction. Difford’s Guide says the Brooklyn as we know it first appears in print in Jacob Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual, 1908, as equal parts rye and Italian vermouth with a dash each of Picon and maraschino. In 1913 Jacques Straub’s manual, as Difford’s Guide reproduces it, made it with French, or dry, vermouth.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Maraschino cherry
Ingredients
60ml
Rye of 40% ABV upwards. The drink is dry throughout, and bourbon’s corn sweetness pulls it out of shape.
22.5ml
French-style dry vermouth, about 18% ABV, opened within the month and kept cold. It is what separates the Brooklyn from a Manhattan, which uses sweet.
7.5ml
A clear cherry liqueur, around 32% ABV. At a bar spoon and a half it adds cherry stone and a bitter almond note in the background, never a flavour you could name.
7.5ml
Standing in for Amer Picon. Averna is a Sicilian amaro at 29% ABV on Difford’s Guide’s listing, with bitter orange and caramel; Skurnik, Bigallet’s US importer, calls Bigallet China-China, at 40% ABV, a replacement for Amer Picon.
2 dashes
Two dashes, supplying the orange that Picon carried and the Averna alone does not.
Instructions
Chill a Nick and Nora glass in the freezer.
Add the rye, dry vermouth, maraschino, Averna and orange bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 20 to 30 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Garnish with a cocktail cherry.
Expert Tip
Keep the Averna at 7.5ml. An amaro standing in for Picon tempts a heavier pour, and at double the measure the glass tastes of amaro with rye somewhere underneath. The Brooklyn is a rye drink with two small seasonings. Use fresh dry vermouth, opened within the month and stored cold. After the rye it is the biggest measure in the glass, and an oxidised bottle turns the drink flat and faintly sour. Stir for the full 20 to 30 seconds and strain into a glass from the freezer. Nothing in the drink is sweet enough to hide a warm, under-diluted pour.
Behind the Brooklyn
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Difford’s Guide says the Brooklyn as we know it first appears in print in Jack’s Manual, published in 1908 by Jacob Grohusko, who lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, and was head bartender at Baracca’s Restaurant on Wall Street. His version was half rye and half Italian vermouth, with a dash of Amer Picon and a dash of maraschino.
Difford’s Guide calls it one of the Manhattan variations named after New York’s five boroughs, inspired by the Manhattan and the Bronx, and notes that Grohusko’s only tenuous link with Brooklyn was that the owner of Baracca’s, Victor Baracca, was a Brooklynite. In 1913 Jacques Straub’s Straub’s Manual of Mixed Drinks, which Difford’s Guide reproduces, made the Brooklyn with French vermouth.
The Amer Picon Problem
Amer Picon is a French orange-flavoured bitters aperitif. the Oxford Companion says its strength fell from about 40% ABV to 38% in the 1920s, 27% in the 1970s and 18% in 1989, and Punch says it is still largely unavailable in the United States.
In our view every Brooklyn now uses a stand-in. Skurnik, Bigallet’s US importer, calls Bigallet China-China, a French bitter orange liqueur, “a pivotal replacement for any classic cocktail that calls for Amer Picon”. Averna with orange bitters is the easiest to buy, and Punch’s Brooklyn recipe names Amaro CioCiaro.
A Manhattan, Made Dry
Take away the two seasonings and a Brooklyn is rye and dry vermouth at a little under three to one. In a Manhattan, sweet vermouth adds sugar, body and wine fruit. Dry vermouth adds only the wine and herbs, so something has to fill the gap.
The maraschino and the bitter orange fill it. Maraschino gives cherry stone and a faint sweetness; the amaro gives bitterness and weight. Together they do the work of sweet vermouth with far less sugar, which is why the drink tastes drier than its ingredient list suggests.
The Brooklyn Against Its Neighbours
The Brooklyn, Grohusko’s 1908 original as Difford’s Guide reproduces it, and two relations; the units are our calculation at our working figures of 40% for rye, 18% for dry vermouth and 16% for sweet vermouth and Punt e Mes, with maraschino at Luxardo’s 32% and Averna at 29% on Difford’s Guide’s listing
Brooklyn (ours)
- Whiskey
- 60ml rye
- Vermouth
- 22.5ml dry
- Seasoning
- 7.5ml maraschino, 7.5ml Averna, orange bitters
- UK units
- About 3.3
Brooklyn (Grohusko, 1908)
- Whiskey
- Half rye
- Vermouth
- Half Italian
- Seasoning
- A dash each of Amer Picon and maraschino
- UK units
- Proportions only
Manhattan
- Whiskey
- 50ml rye
- Vermouth
- 20ml sweet
- Seasoning
- A dash of Angostura
- UK units
- About 2.3
Red Hook
- Whiskey
- 60ml rye
- Vermouth
- 22.5ml Punt e Mes
- Seasoning
- 15ml maraschino
- UK units
- About 3.2
| Drink | Whiskey | Vermouth | Seasoning | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn (ours) | 60ml rye | 22.5ml dry | 7.5ml maraschino, 7.5ml Averna, orange bitters | About 3.3 |
| Brooklyn (Grohusko, 1908) | Half rye | Half Italian | A dash each of Amer Picon and maraschino | Proportions only |
| Manhattan | 50ml rye | 20ml sweet | A dash of Angostura | About 2.3 |
| Red Hook | 60ml rye | 22.5ml Punt e Mes | 15ml maraschino | About 3.2 |
The sweet vermouth original is the Manhattan. The Red Hook replaces both the vermouth and the Picon with Punt e Mes.
How to Serve It
Strained into a Nick and Nora glass from the freezer, with one cocktail cherry and no ice. The drink is small and strong; drink it before it warms.
Make one beside a Manhattan once. The same rye in the same shape: one plush and sweet, the other dry and faintly bitter.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Whiskey (Rye)Rye whiskey, under the US standard 27 CFR 5.143, 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 a Brooklyn cocktail?
What happened to Amer Picon?
What can I use instead of Amer Picon?
How strong is a Brooklyn?
How is a Brooklyn different from a Manhattan?
How does it relate to the Red Hook?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Brooklyn Cocktail” (secondary source, reproducing Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual (1908: 50% rye, 50% Italian vermouth, a dash each of Amer Picon and maraschino) and Straub’s Manual of Mixed Drinks (1913: French vermouth); Grohusko of Hoboken, head bartender at Baracca’s Restaurant, Wall Street; owner Victor Baracca a Brooklynite).
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Fernando Castellon), “Picon” (secondary source: initial proof about 40%, 38% in the 1920s, 27% in the 1970s, 18% in 1989; now owned by Diageo; featured in the Brooklyn).
- Punch, “Brooklyn” (secondary source: Amer Picon “still largely unavailable in the U.S.”; Amaro CioCiaro “a fine substitute”).
- Imbibe, “Red Hook Cocktail” (secondary source: created by Vincenzo Errico at Milk & Honey, New York City, in 2003).
- Punch, “What is it about the Manhattan and Brooklyn?” (secondary source: the Red Hook began a run of Manhattan and Brooklyn riffs named after Brooklyn neighbourhoods).
- Skurnik Wines, “China China Amer (Bigallet)” (US importer’s page: 40% ABV; “a pivotal replacement for any classic cocktail that calls for Amer Picon”).
- Difford’s Guide, “Averna Amaro Siciliano” (secondary source: alc./vol. 29%).
- Luxardo, “Maraschino Originale” (producer’s product page: 32% alc. by vol.).
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Red Hook
A Red Hook is 60ml of rye whiskey, 22.5ml of Punt e Mes and 15ml of maraschino liqueur, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass with a cocktail cherry. About 3.2 UK units. Imbibe credits Vincenzo Errico with it, at Milk & Honey in New York in 2003, and says it takes its name from Red Hook, the south Brooklyn neighbourhood that was a 19th-century industrial shipping port. It sits between the Manhattan and the Brooklyn: rye from both, maraschino from the Brooklyn, and Punt e Mes, a bitter-edged Italian vermouth, doing the work of sweet vermouth and the bitter Amer Picon at once. Imbibe’s published recipe takes half an ounce, 15ml, of Punt e Mes. We pour 22.5ml, which keeps the bitterness in step with a maraschino measure twice the size of the Brooklyn’s.
Manhattan
The IBA specifies 50ml of rye whiskey, 20ml of sweet vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters, strained into a chilled glass with a cocktail cherry; we stir it over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and serve it in a coupe. That is five parts whiskey to two of vermouth. About 2.3 UK units. The Oxford Companion says the most commonly told story puts it at New York’s Manhattan Club on 29 December 1874, at a testimonial dinner for Samuel J. Tilden, later retold with Jennie Jerome, Lady Randolph Churchill, as host or inspiration, and calls that story simply not true: she had given birth to Winston Churchill in Oxfordshire less than a month earlier. The Companion names O. H. Byron’s Modern Bartenders’ Guide among the bar books that printed the drink in 1884, and we read Byron’s and Charlie Paul’s books of that year in the Internet Archive scans. 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. We keep it in the fridge and replace it within about four weeks.
Black Manhattan
A Black Manhattan is 50ml of rye whiskey, 20ml of Averna and a dash each of Angostura and orange bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, with a cocktail cherry. About 2.6 UK units. It keeps the Manhattan’s five parts whiskey to two of the sweet partner and replaces all of the vermouth with amaro. Drinks and Drinking, a drinks newsletter, credits Todd Smith with it in 2005, when he was working at Cortez, a San Francisco restaurant; it gives his first version as bourbon, a smaller measure of Averna and coffee-cherry bitters he made himself. Kindred Cocktails, a cocktail database, says a 2008 Washington Post recipe already had rye, Averna, Angostura and orange bitters. Averna is a Sicilian amaro at 29% ABV on Difford’s Guide’s listing, and in our view sweet first and bitter after, with orange peel and a note close to cola. In the vermouth’s place it makes a darker, denser drink with a longer bitter finish.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026