Left Hand
A Left Hand is 45ml of bourbon, 22.5ml of Campari, 22.5ml of sweet vermouth and three dashes of chocolate bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass, finished with an orange twist. About 2.7 UK units. It is a Boulevardier with cacao in it and less of the bitter and the vermouth. It is Sam Ross’s drink, from the New York bar Milk & Honey: VinePair dates it to 2007, as the pair to Michael McIlroy’s Right Hand, and Difford’s Guide to 2006. His version used Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters, then new on the market, and a cherry. The chocolate sits between the bourbon’s vanilla and the Campari’s bitter orange, so the two taste joined. Pulling the Campari and vermouth back to 22.5ml each leaves the bitters room to be tasted.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Orange twist and Maraschino cherry on a pick
Ingredients
45ml
Bourbon at 40% ABV or a little stronger. Its vanilla is what the cacao joins up with, and a higher-rye bottling keeps more backbone against the Campari.
22.5ml
Campari at 25% ABV on LWC’s UK listing, or a similar red bitter. At 22.5ml rather than the Boulevardier’s 30ml, it frames the bourbon without covering the bitters.
22.5ml
An Italian-style sweet vermouth at around 16% ABV, our working figure. Carpano’s own page, in Italian, gives Antica Formula a rich, vanilla taste, which suits the cacao. We put opened bottles in the fridge and use them within about a month.
3 dashes
Plain chocolate bitters for dry cacao, or mole bitters, as Ross used, for cacao with cinnamon and spice. Three dashes is enough for the cacao to show.
Instructions
Chill a Nick and Nora glass.
Add the bourbon, Campari, sweet vermouth and chocolate bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 20 to 30 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Express an orange twist over the surface and drop it in, or garnish with a cherry on a pick.
Source: Difford's Guide (Difford’s measures, adapted from Sam Ross’s original, which Difford’s dates to 2006; three dashes of chocolate bitters where Ross used mole bitters; method ours). Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Chocolate or mole bitters, three dashes either way. Ross used mole bitters, which bring cinnamon and spice with the cacao; plain chocolate bitters give dry cacao on its own. Both suit the drink. Past three dashes, their bitterness stacks on the Campari’s. Stir for 20 to 30 seconds over cubed ice. Campari and sweet vermouth are both sweet, and an under-diluted Left Hand turns syrupy and hides the cacao. Store the vermouth cold. It makes up a quarter of the glass, and oxidised vermouth tastes of stewed fruit.
Behind the Left Hand
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
VinePair says Sam Ross came up with the Left Hand in 2007 at Milk & Honey, Sasha Petraske’s bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Difford’s Guide dates it a year earlier. VinePair counts the Penicillin and the Paper Plane among his greatest hits.
Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters had just come on the market, and VinePair quotes Ross describing the result as “a love child between a Negroni and a Manhattan”. VinePair says Ross and Michael McIlroy created the Left Hand and the Right Hand alongside one another at the same bar in 2007.
What the Cacao Does
A Boulevardier has a gap in it. The bourbon gives vanilla, caramel and oak; the red bitter brings bitter orange; sweet vermouth adds weight and sugar between them. The bourbon and the Campari never quite meet.
Cacao is dry, a little bitter and faintly fruity, which fits that gap. Add three dashes and the vanilla runs into the chocolate, and the chocolate into the orange. It reads as depth more than as chocolate.
The Trim
The IBA Boulevardier takes 30ml each of Campari and sweet vermouth against 45ml of bourbon. The Left Hand cuts both to 22.5ml.
Campari and sweet vermouth are sweet and loud. At 30ml each they bury a few dashes of bitters; at 22.5ml the bourbon leads and the cacao comes through.
Left Hand, Right Hand and Boulevardier
Left Hand
- Base
- 45ml bourbon
- Campari
- 22.5ml
- Sweet vermouth
- 22.5ml
- Bitters
- Three dashes chocolate
- Served
- Up, Nick and Nora
Right Hand
- Base
- 45ml aged rum
- Campari
- 22.5ml
- Sweet vermouth
- 22.5ml
- Bitters
- Three dashes chocolate
- Served
- Up, Nick and Nora
Boulevardier
- Base
- 45ml bourbon
- Campari
- 30ml
- Sweet vermouth
- 30ml
- Bitters
- None
- Served
- Over ice, rocks glass
| Drink | Base | Campari | Sweet vermouth | Bitters | Served |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Left Hand | 45ml bourbon | 22.5ml | 22.5ml | Three dashes chocolate | Up, Nick and Nora |
| Right Hand | 45ml aged rum | 22.5ml | 22.5ml | Three dashes chocolate | Up, Nick and Nora |
| Boulevardier | 45ml bourbon | 30ml | 30ml | None | Over ice, rocks glass |
Swap the bourbon for aged rum and you have the Right Hand. Restore the full measures and leave out the bitters, and you are back at the Boulevardier.
How to Serve It
Stirred and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora or coupe, with an orange twist expressed and dropped in, or a cherry on a pick. Drink it after dinner.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Whiskey (Bourbon)Under the US standard 27 CFR 5.143, bourbon is an American whiskey whose mash is at least 51% corn, matured in fresh charred oak barrels and bottled at 40% ABV or higher, the figure our recipes use. The fresh charred wood gives it its vanilla, caramel and colour, and the corn gives a rounder, sweeter spirit than rye. It is the base of 26 of our recipes, more than any other whiskey.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Left Hand cocktail?
What do the chocolate bitters do?
Mole bitters or chocolate bitters?
What is a Right Hand?
How is it different from a Boulevardier?
How strong is a Left Hand?
Cherry or orange twist?
Sources.
Correct as of 18 October 2026.
- VinePair, “How To Make A Left Hand” (secondary source: Ross, 2007, Milk & Honey; Xocolatl Mole bitters “had just hit the market”; “a love child between a Negroni and a Manhattan”; the Hand series).
- Difford’s Guide, “Left Hand” (secondary source: adapted from a recipe created in 2006 by Sam Ross at Milk & Honey; first made soon after the release of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters).
- LWC, “Campari 70cl” (UK wholesaler listing: Alcohol By Volume 25%).
- Carpano (Fratelli Branca Distillerie), “Antica Formula” (producer’s page, in Italian: vanilla bouquet, dried fruit, spice; rich, vanilla taste with bitter orange, dates, cocoa beans and saffron).
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Boulevardier
A Boulevardier is 45ml bourbon, 30ml Campari and 30ml sweet vermouth, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with orange peel. It is the bourbon Negroni: the same Campari and vermouth with bourbon in place of gin, and that one change makes it warmer and rounder. About 3.0 UK units. It first appeared in print in Barflies and Cocktails, Harry MacElhone’s book, published in Paris in 1927, in a chapter by the columnist Arthur Moss, as the cocktail of Erskine Gwynne, an American in Paris who, Difford’s Guide says, helped found a monthly magazine called Boulevardier. Barflies and Cocktails gives the 1927 recipe as equal parts Campari, Italian vermouth and bourbon. The measures here are the IBA’s, with the bourbon ahead of the other two. Equal parts works well with a lighter vermouth. Against a rich one such as Carpano Antica Formula, the extra 15ml of bourbon keeps the drink from turning heavy.
Right Hand
A Right Hand is 45ml of aged rum, 22.5ml of Campari, 22.5ml of sweet vermouth and three dashes of chocolate bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick & Nora, with an orange twist. About 2.7 UK units. VinePair dates the Right Hand to 2007, and Difford’s Guide to 2007 or 2008: Michael McIlroy created it at Milk & Honey in New York, a rum drink on the Negroni’s frame. Sam Ross, from the same bar, answered it with the Left Hand on bourbon, and the two have been poured as a pair since. VinePair traces both to the arrival that year of a mole-style chocolate bitters from Bittermens. Campari is a hard partner for rum. A light rum disappears under it. An aged rum with oak and dried fruit holds its ground, the vermouth softens the join, and the cacao in the bitters links the dark sugar to the bitter orange.
Negroni
A Negroni is 30ml each of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with an orange peel expressed over the top. About 2.4 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the IBA builds the drink in the glass and garnishes it with half an orange slice. Difford’s Guide gives the most widely reported account: Florence in 1919, at the Casoni Bar, where the bartender Fosco Scarselli is said to have replaced the soda in Count Camillo Negroni’s Americano with gin. The Oxford Companion has the drink named in a surviving letter of October 1920 and then absent under that name until 1947. A French book of 1929 by Alimbau and Milhorat, in the Internet Archive’s scan, gives equal parts of the three as the Campari Mixte. Each third has a job. Gin gives strength and juniper, the red bitter gives bitterness and orange, and the vermouth gives body and sugar. With no juice or soda in the glass, a tired vermouth shows at once.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 18 October 2026