Hunter
A Hunter is 60ml rye whiskey and 30ml cherry brandy, stirred over one large cube in a rocks glass for 15 to 20 seconds, with a cocktail cherry if you want one. About 3.1 UK units, taking cherry brandy at 24% ABV. The earliest printed recipe usually cited is in Jack Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual of 1908, at three parts rye to one of cherry brandy. Ours is two to one, a little sweeter and fruitier. No one is credited with inventing it. It works like a Rusty Nail: a spirit and a sweet liqueur, with no citrus and no bitters. The cherry brings dark fruit and a faint kernel note, and the rye’s pepper keeps it from turning into cordial. Nothing in it spoils, so it travels well in a flask.
Glassware: Rocks Glass
Garnish: Maraschino cherry (optional)
Ingredients
60ml
Rye with some spice, bottled at 40% ABV or higher. Its pepper stops the cherry tasting like cordial; bourbon adds sweetness to an already sweet drink.
30ml
A dark cherry liqueur in the Heering style, at about 24% ABV: sweet, rich stone fruit with a kernel note underneath. Not maraschino, which is clear and makes another drink.
Instructions
Put one large ice cube in a rocks glass.
Add the rye and the cherry brandy.
Stir for 15 to 20 seconds.
Add a cocktail cherry if you like.
Expert Tip
Get the right cherry. You want a dark cherry brandy in the Heering style, rich and sweet with a kernel bitterness underneath. Maraschino is a different liqueur, clear and floral, and it makes a different drink. Keep the ratio at two to one or drier. At equal parts the cherry takes over and the glass tastes of liqueur with whiskey in it. The 1908 recipe ran at three to one, which is worth trying if you find ours sweet. Stir it in the glass over one large cube, for 15 to 20 seconds. A big cube chills it without washing it out, and the drink keeps opening as it slowly dilutes.
Behind the Hunter
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The earliest printed recipe usually cited is in Jack Grohusko’s Jack’s Manual, a bar book of 1908. It calls for three parts rye whiskey stirred with one part cherry brandy.
No one is credited with creating it. A drink of two bottles and ice tends to be written down rather than invented, and many like it from the period have no author.
Later recipes kept the pair and sometimes added bitters or a twist of lemon. Ours keeps it plain and runs a little sweeter, at two parts rye to one of cherry.
The Two-Bottle Arithmetic
A spirit with a sweet liqueur, stirred, is an old pattern in drinks. The Rusty Nail, Scotch with Drambuie, is the familiar example.
The Hunter runs the same pattern with darker fruit. Only the ratio changes, and it decides whether the whiskey or the cherry leads.
The Hunter and the two-bottle pattern
Hunter, ours
- Spirit
- 60ml rye
- Liqueur
- 30ml cherry brandy
- Ratio
- 2 : 1
- UK units
- 3.1
Hunter, 1908 ratio
- Spirit
- 60ml rye
- Liqueur
- 20ml cherry brandy
- Ratio
- 3 : 1
- UK units
- 2.9
Rusty Nail
- Spirit
- 45ml Scotch
- Liqueur
- 25ml Drambuie
- Ratio
- About 2 : 1
- UK units
- 2.8
| Drink | Spirit | Liqueur | Ratio | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hunter, ours | 60ml rye | 30ml cherry brandy | 2 : 1 | 3.1 |
| Hunter, 1908 ratio | 60ml rye | 20ml cherry brandy | 3 : 1 | 2.9 |
| Rusty Nail | 45ml Scotch | 25ml Drambuie | About 2 : 1 | 2.8 |
Which Cherry
Two cherry liqueurs are in common use, and they do not swap.
Cherry brandy in the Heering style is dark, sweet and rich, with a faint kernel bitterness. It tastes of preserved cherries, and it is what the Hunter wants.
Maraschino is clear and floral, with a strong almond note. In this drink it makes something closer to a Fancy Free.
Why It Suits a Flask
Nothing in the drink spoils. There is no juice to oxidise, no dairy and no foam to collapse.
Mixed in the morning, it tastes the same in the afternoon. Outdoors in cold weather, it needs little or no ice.
How to Serve It
Over one large cube in a rocks glass, stirred for 15 to 20 seconds, with a cocktail cherry if you want one.
Pour one at the end of a cold day. Make one beside a Rusty Nail to taste the same pattern with fruit in place of honey.
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.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Hunter cocktail?
How strong is a Hunter?
Which cherry liqueur should I use?
Can I use bourbon instead of rye?
How does it relate to Remember the Maine?
Where does the Hunter come from?
Can I carry it in a flask?
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Remember the Maine
Remember the Maine is 60ml of rye, 22.5ml of sweet vermouth and 15ml of dark cherry liqueur, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe rinsed with 7.5ml of absinthe, with a cherry. Those are the IBA’s measures. About 3.1 UK units. Charles H. Baker Jr. recorded it in The Gentleman’s Companion in 1939, writing that he drank it in Havana in 1933, during the revolution. The name is the American rallying cry after the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana harbour in 1898, an event that helped start the Spanish-American War. It is a Manhattan with the vermouth cut back to make room for dark cherry, and anise from the absinthe on the nose. The rinse is the delicate part: swirled round the glass and poured away, the absinthe scents the drink without taking it over.
Rusty Nail
A Rusty Nail is 45ml Scotch whisky and 25ml Drambuie, stirred for 15 to 20 seconds over one large ice cube in a rocks glass and finished with a lemon twist, expressed and dropped in. About 2.8 UK units. The IBA gives the same measures, a little under two parts whisky to one of liqueur. Drambuie is itself Scotch whisky, sweetened with heather honey and flavoured with herbs and spices, so the drink pairs a spirit with a sweeter version of itself. The pairing first appears in 1937 as the B.I.F., named after the British Industries Fair, and went through several names before Rusty Nail stuck in early-1960s New York. The ratio is the whole recipe. More Drambuie makes a honeyed after-dinner drink; more whisky makes it drier and leaves the honey as an accent.
Fancy Free
A Fancy Free is 60ml of rye whiskey, 15ml of maraschino liqueur and two dashes each of Angostura and orange bitters, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over one large cube in a rocks glass, with an expressed orange twist. About 3.0 UK units. It is an Old Fashioned sweetened with maraschino in place of sugar. Punch traces it to Crosby Gaige’s Cocktail Guide and Ladies’ Companion of 1941, where it was shaken, served in a sugar-rimmed cocktail glass and given only two dashes of maraschino. The drink came back through New York’s revival bars. The bartender Jeremy Oertel found it on a Milk & Honey spec sheet around 2010, and his version, stirred over a big cube with 15ml of maraschino, is the one we follow, with rye where he uses bourbon.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026