Metropole
The Metropole is a brandy martini: cognac and dry vermouth in equal measure, with two dashes of Peychaud's and one of orange bitters. It was the house drink of the Hotel Metropole off Times Square, which was pre-Prohibition Broadway's address for sporting men, chorus girls and gamblers. The hotel is best remembered for something that happened outside it. In July 1912 the gambler Herman Rosenthal was shot dead on the pavement having just left the bar, and the scandal that followed reached into the New York police department and helped close an era. The drink outlived the building by a century. What makes it interesting now is the bitters. Peychaud's is normally the Sazerac's bottle and very little else, and here it is doing something quite different: anise and cherry brightening a dry brandy drink, with orange bitters split against it. New Orleans seasoning a New York cocktail, which is not a combination anyone would predict.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Maraschino Cherry in the hotel’s manner
Ingredients
45ml
A VS with genuine personality. The dry frame exposes the brandy's fruit rather than cushioning it, so a bland bottle has nowhere to go and an expensive one is largely wasted.
45ml
Half the glass, which is the period proportion. Fresh and fridge-cold: at this measure a tired bottle is half of what you are drinking.
2 dashes
The signature, and the reason this is a Metropole rather than a brandy martini. Anise and cherry rather than Angostura's clove, which makes a completely different drink.
1 dash
One dash split against the two of Peychaud's, putting peel over the anise. It is the bridge between an aromatised wine and a grape spirit.
Instructions
Add the cognac, dry vermouth and both bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 25 seconds.
Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
Drop in a good cherry.
Expert Tip
The Peychaud's is the drink's signature and not a substitution for anything. Two dashes of anise and cherry against cognac and dry vermouth is what makes this a Metropole; two dashes of Angostura makes a perfectly good brandy martini that is not this one. Equal parts means equal parts, which is a period habit modern palates find surprising. Forty-five and forty-five reads wetter than a contemporary martini and it is meant to: the vermouth is a partner here rather than a rinse. Keep the vermouth fresh and cold. At half the glass there is nowhere for a tired bottle to hide, and a Metropole made with vermouth that has been open a month tastes flat and slightly sour.
Flavour Profile
The Hotel
The Hotel Metropole stood on West 43rd Street just off Times Square, and through the 1900s it was Broadway's sporting address: a bar that ran late, a clientele of gamblers, showpeople and the men who took bets from both.
Its place in history is grim rather than glamorous. In the early hours of 16 July 1912 the gambler Herman Rosenthal was shot dead on the pavement outside, having just come from the bar. He had been about to testify to police corruption, and the investigation that followed brought down a police lieutenant and helped end an era of open graft in the city.
The hotel did not survive Prohibition. The drink did, preserved in Jacques Straub's Drinks and the other manuals of the period.
The Harvard's Dry Twin
The Metropole and the Harvard are the same architecture with opposite vermouths, and they are worth understanding as a pair.
Both are cognac and vermouth in equal measure with bitters. The Harvard uses sweet Italian vermouth, which cushions the brandy and gives a plush, rounded drink. The Metropole uses dry French vermouth, which does the opposite: it exposes the cognac's fruit rather than padding it, and the whole thing runs leaner and more austere.
That makes the Metropole the more demanding of the two and the better showcase for a cognac worth tasting. It also makes it considerably less forgiving of a dull one.
Peychaud's Outside the Sazerac
Peychaud's is one of the most single-purpose bottles in bartending. It exists, for most people, to make a Sazerac, and a good many bars stock it for nothing else.
That is a shame, because it is a genuinely distinct product rather than an alternative Angostura. Where Angostura is clove, cinnamon and gentian, Peychaud's is anise-forward with a bright cherry note and considerably less weight. It seasons rather than deepens.
Against cognac and dry vermouth it does something no other bitters would: the anise picks up the vermouth's herbs and the cherry picks up the brandy's fruit, and the drink acquires a lift it would not otherwise have. Angostura in the same slot is heavier and more familiar and makes a duller drink.
Equal Parts and the Period Palate
Forty-five millilitres each of cognac and vermouth is a proportion no modern martini would use, and it is not an error in the record.
Pre-Prohibition drinks were routinely wetter than what came after. The twentieth century's long drift toward drier martinis had not started, and a fifty-fifty spirit-and-vermouth drink was normal rather than notable.
It is worth making as written before adjusting anything. The vermouth is a partner here, and at a modern ratio the bitters have nothing to sit against and the drink loses most of its point.
How to Serve It
Stirred for twenty-five seconds over cubed ice, strained into a chilled Nick and Nora, with a good cherry.
Cold and late, in the Gilded Age manner. Make one beside a Harvard if you want the brandy martini's two poles in a single sitting: same frame, opposite vermouth, and a genuinely different drink.
The Spirit
CognacGrape brandy from the Cognac region of western France, twice distilled in copper pot stills and aged in French oak. Ugni Blanc does nearly all the work, a thin acidic wine that makes poor drinking and excellent spirit, and the age classifications on the label are legally defined minimums.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Metropole?
A brandy martini: cognac and dry vermouth in equal measure with two dashes of Peychaud's and one of orange bitters, stirred and served up. It was the house drink of the Hotel Metropole off Times Square.
How does it differ from a Harvard?
The vermouth. Both are equal-parts cognac and vermouth with bitters; the Harvard uses sweet Italian, which cushions the brandy, and the Metropole uses dry French, which exposes it. Same frame, opposite poles, and genuinely different drinks.
Why Peychaud's rather than Angostura?
Because they are genuinely different products. Peychaud's is anise-forward with a bright cherry note; Angostura is clove and gentian and considerably heavier. The anise picks up the vermouth's herbs in a way Angostura does not.
Is equal parts really correct?
Yes, and it is worth making as written. Pre-Prohibition drinks were routinely wetter than what came after, and at a modern martini ratio the bitters have nothing to sit against and the drink loses most of its point.
Master the Techniques
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Harvard
The Harvard belongs to the 1890s fashion for naming Manhattan variations after universities: the drink appears in George Kappeler’s 1895 Modern American Drinks alongside its classmates the Yale and the Princeton, and it has outlasted both by being the best of the year group. It is a Manhattan that swapped its rye for cognac and lightened its step accordingly. The structure sits between two classics: sweet vermouth and bitters as a Manhattan demands, cognac where the whiskey stood, and a short splash of soda in the classic spec that opens the drink like a window. The grape base makes it rounder and softer-spoken than its whiskey parent, closer in temperament to fortified wine than to bourbon. It is the drink to hand a Manhattan loyalist who claims not to like brandy: same bones, same bitters, and a finish that argues cognac’s case better than any tasting note. The nearby Champs-Élysées and Sidecar complete cognac’s classic trio; the Harvard is the stirred, civilised corner of it.
Sazerac
The Sazerac is one of the oldest documented cocktails in American history, originating in New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century and taking its name from the Sazerac de Forge et Fils cognac that formed its original base. The switch from cognac to rye came gradually, accelerated by the phylloxera epidemic that devastated French vineyards in the 1870s and made cognac scarce across the American market. By the time cognac returned, rye had become the standard and has remained so ever since. It is a three-ingredient drink dressed with an absinthe rinse and a lemon peel expressed and discarded. The absinthe coats the glass, the lemon oils land on the surface, and neither remains in the drink in any measurable volume, yet both are present in every sip in a way that adding them directly cannot replicate. That indirection is the technique. New Orleans has argued about the correct build for as long as the drink has existed. The version here uses rye, Peychaud's with a single dash of Angostura, and a sugar cube.
East India No. 2
The East India No. 2 is fino sherry and dry vermouth in equal measure, bridged by orange bitters with a single dash of Angostura underneath. There is no spirit in it, which puts it at roughly a third of a Martini's strength and makes it a drink you can have more than one of. It is the second of two drinks under the East India name in the Savoy Cocktail Book. The first is a brandy drink built on curaçao and pineapple, a relic of the trade the name refers to. The No.2 shares nothing with it but the flag: it is a fortified-wine aperitif and belongs to a completely different tradition. What it does is strip the Coronation No. 1 back. Take the maraschino out of that drink and this is what remains: two pale wines and two kinds of bitters, with nothing sweet to soften the join. Whether that is an improvement depends entirely on how dry you like things.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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