Man O’ War
A Man O’ War is 45ml of bourbon, 15ml of triple sec, 15ml of sweet vermouth and 15ml of fresh lemon juice, shaken hard and fine strained into a coupe chilled beforehand. About 2.6 UK units, counting 40% ABV bourbon and triple sec with 16% ABV vermouth. It is a bourbon sour with the sweetness handed to an orange liqueur and a rosso vermouth. Difford’s Guide could not find it in mid-century cocktail books and treats it as modern. The name is usually linked to the racehorse Man o’ War, and the drink turned up in a 2015 set of Kentucky Derby recipes.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Lemon twist expressed over the drink, then discarded and Maraschino cherry skewered
Ingredients
45ml
A bourbon at 40% ABV. Difford’s names no brand, and the Indianapolis Star version uses Maker’s Mark.
15ml
Difford’s prints Combier. The newspaper version uses Cointreau. A drier triple sec keeps the drink sharper.
15ml
A rosso vermouth, which Difford’s prints as Strucchi. Keep opened bottles in the fridge.
2.5ml
Optional. Difford’s adds it, as a 2:1 cane syrup, and says to omit it or increase it to 5ml to suit your lemons.
3 drops
Optional. Difford’s uses its own saline solution, or the smallest pinch of salt.
Instructions
Chill a coupe. Squeeze the lemon the day you serve.
Cut a lemon twist and skewer a maraschino cherry.
Add the bourbon, triple sec, sweet vermouth, lemon juice and the optional syrup and saline to a shaker with plenty of ice.
Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Fine strain into the chilled coupe.
Hold the lemon twist above the glass, squeeze to release its oil and discard it, then add the cherry.
Source: Difford's Guide (recipe 4819, measures, method and garnish as printed (45ml bourbon, 15ml triple sec, 15ml rosso vermouth, 15ml lemon, optional 2.5ml cane syrup and 3 drops saline, shaken, fine strained, coupe); Difford’s also quotes the Indianapolis Star version at 1.5oz bourbon and 0.5oz each of Cointreau, sweet vermouth and lemon). Last checked 1 November 2026.
Expert Tip
Taste your lemon before you decide on the syrup. Difford’s calls its 2.5ml optional and says the right amount depends on the fruit, so a sweet lemon needs none and a sharp one may want 5ml. Treat the vermouth as a spice, not a sweetener. At 15ml it should be felt as depth, and a stale bottle shows up as a flat, sherried note. Fine strain every time. The drink is short and served without ice, so shards in the glass dilute it before you finish.
Behind the Man O’ War
Flavour Profile
A bourbon sour with a vermouth in it
Difford’s Guide says the drink is said to be named after the American thoroughbred Man o’ War, who won 20 of his 21 races in 1919 and 1920. The Indianapolis Star printed it on 30 April 2015 as one of three Kentucky Derby cocktails. Difford’s checked the cocktail books of the 1930s and later and could not find it, so it treats the Man O’ War as a modern drink.
Difford’s also lists other possible sources of the name: a Man-O-War cocktail lounge at a Cape Cod Holiday Inn built in 1969 and another at a Florida hotel that opened in 1967. A 1915 newspaper account describes an unrelated egg-nog-style drink by the same name. The origin is unsettled.
How the balance works
The structure is a whiskey sour in which part of the sugar comes from the liqueur. Fifteen millilitres of triple sec adds orange and sweetness, and 15ml of sweet vermouth adds wine, spice and depth. Together with 15ml of fresh lemon juice, the three modifiers sit at one third of the volume of the bourbon.
Difford’s adds an optional 2.5ml of cane syrup and three drops of saline solution. The newspaper version it quotes uses Maker’s Mark, Cointreau, sweet vermouth and lemon, in a 3:1:1:1 ratio, and nothing else. Difford’s notes the syrup is its own addition and depends on your lemons.
The Man O’ War beside three bourbon drinks
Man O’ War
- Bourbon
- 45ml
- Sweetener
- 15ml triple sec, 15ml sweet vermouth
- Citrus
- 15ml lemon
- Method
- Shaken, served up
Paper Plane
- Bourbon
- 30ml
- Sweetener
- 30ml Aperol, 30ml Amaro Nonino
- Citrus
- 30ml lemon
- Method
- Shaken, served up
Boulevardier
- Bourbon
- Bourbon
- Sweetener
- Campari and sweet vermouth
- Citrus
- None
- Method
- Stirred
Brown Derby
- Bourbon
- Bourbon
- Sweetener
- Honey syrup
- Citrus
- Grapefruit
- Method
- Shaken, served up
| Drink | Bourbon | Sweetener | Citrus | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Man O’ War | 45ml | 15ml triple sec, 15ml sweet vermouth | 15ml lemon | Shaken, served up |
| Paper Plane | 30ml | 30ml Aperol, 30ml Amaro Nonino | 30ml lemon | Shaken, served up |
| Boulevardier | Bourbon | Campari and sweet vermouth | None | Stirred |
| Brown Derby | Bourbon | Honey syrup | Grapefruit | Shaken, served up |
Where the Paper Plane uses equal parts, the Man O’ War is bourbon-led, and the lemon and vermouth stay in the background. Compare the Brown Derby for another bourbon sour with a different sweetener.
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.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the name Man O’ War come from?
How strong is a Man O’ War?
Can I use rye instead of bourbon?
Does it need the saline solution?
Can I use orange curaçao instead of triple sec?
Why is the glass a coupe?
Can I make a Man O’ War ahead of time?
Sources.
Correct as of 1 November 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Man O’ War” (recipe 4819: 45ml bourbon, 15ml triple sec, 15ml rosso vermouth, 15ml lemon juice, optional cane syrup and saline, shaken and fine strained into a coupe; history: said to be named for the racehorse, not found in mid-century books, quotes the Indianapolis Star, 30 April 2015; 2.6 units).
- NHS, “Calculating alcohol units” (the 14-units-a-week guidance and the units calculation).
You Might Also Like
Paper Plane
A Paper Plane is 30ml each of bourbon, Aperol, Amaro Nonino and fresh lemon juice, shaken hard and double strained into a chilled coupe. Four equal parts, which is the IBA specification: bitter orange, herbs and lemon over bourbon, at about 2.6 UK units. Punch, a secondary source, says Toby Maloney, who helped open The Violet Hour in Chicago, asked Sam Ross to create a drink for the bar, and that it was on the menu there in the summer of 2008. Ross named it after the M.I.A. song Paper Planes. The first version used Campari; Punch quotes Ross finding it slightly too bitter and short of sweetness, and he moved to Aperol. Equal parts leaves nowhere to hide. Squeeze the lemon the same day and use Nonino, not a cheaper amaro, because each ingredient is a quarter of the drink.
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.
Brown Derby
A Brown Derby is 60ml of bourbon, 30ml of fresh grapefruit juice and 22.5ml of honey syrup made with two parts honey to one of warm water, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with a grapefruit twist. About 2.4 UK units. It is a bourbon sour with both standard parts swapped. Grapefruit replaces lemon and brings bitterness along with its acid. Honey replaces sugar and brings a floral, waxy weight. Each softens what the other adds, and the bourbon’s vanilla sits underneath both. The Oxford Companion, in an entry by Robert F. Moss, says the Hollywood link comes from a single source, George Buzza Jr.’s Hollywood Cocktails of 1933, which copied the De Rigueur from the Savoy Cocktail Book and renamed it the Brown Derby, and that there is no evidence it was ever served at the Brown Derby restaurant, whose original building was shaped like a derby hat. The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930, in the Internet Archive’s scan, prints the De Rigueur of whisky, grapefruit juice and honey.
Sidecar
A Sidecar is a cognac sour: 50ml cognac, 20ml Cointreau or another triple sec and 20ml fresh lemon juice, shaken hard and double strained into a chilled coupe under an expressed strip of lemon peel. The IBA gives these measures, which put the cognac at two and a half parts to one each of orange and lemon. The Oxford Companion dates the first printed recipes to 1922, in Robert Vermeire’s Cocktails: How to Mix Them in May and Harry MacElhone’s Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails at the end of the year, both at equal parts by Difford’s Guide. Both named Pat MacGarry of Buck’s Club in London; Difford’s says later editions of MacElhone’s book appear to take the credit for himself. The sugared rim came later: the earliest mention we have read is a 1932 American book, and the Oxford Companion says the drink has often been served with one since the 1930s. Ours has no rim. Each Sidecar carries about 2.8 UK units.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 2 November 2026