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.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Maraschino cherry
Ingredients
60ml
Rye of 40% ABV or more. The Punt e Mes and maraschino are both assertive and sweet, and a soft whiskey disappears under them.
22.5ml
An Italian vermouth with a bitter quinine edge, at our working figure of 16% ABV. Imbibe gives the name as Piedmontese for a point and a half. We keep it in the fridge once opened and use it within the month.
15ml
A clear cherry liqueur; Luxardo’s own page gives its Maraschino Originale at 32% ABV. At 15ml it is twice the Brooklyn’s measure and a flavour in its own right.
Instructions
Chill a Nick and Nora glass in the freezer.
Add the rye, Punt e Mes and maraschino 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.
Our version
Imbibe’s published Red Hook is 60ml rye with 15ml each of Punt e Mes and maraschino. We pour 22.5ml of Punt e Mes so its bitterness holds against the maraschino through to the finish.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Buy the Punt e Mes. Sweet vermouth with a dash of bitters comes close but misses the quinine bitterness on the finish, and that bitterness is what keeps 15ml of maraschino in its place. Measure the maraschino exactly. It is a loud liqueur, and a few millilitres over turns the drink towards cherry cough sweet. Give it 20 to 30 seconds on the ice and pour it into a frozen glass. With 60ml of rye in it, the drink needs that dilution, and served warm it tastes hot and heavy.
Behind the Red Hook
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Imbibe credits Vincenzo Errico, an Italian bartender, with the Red Hook, made at Milk & Honey in New York in 2003. Imbibe says the inspiration was the new availability of Punt e Mes behind the bar, and quotes Errico: “I was an Italian bartender working in Manhattan making a twist between the Brooklyn and Manhattan cocktail.”
Imbibe says the name comes from Red Hook, a south Brooklyn neighbourhood that was a 19th-century industrial shipping port; Errico recalls that “a fellow Italian neighbor of mine in Brooklyn suggested the name to me”. That set it beside the Brooklyn cocktail, and the two are usually read together: the Red Hook gets round the Brooklyn’s missing Amer Picon by not needing it.
One Bottle, Two Jobs
A Brooklyn needs dry vermouth and Amer Picon, a French orange-flavoured bitters aperitif whose strength the Oxford Companion says fell from about 40% ABV to 38% in the 1920s, 27% in the 1970s and 18% in 1989, and which Punch says was withdrawn from the American market in the 1990s. In our view no bartender can pour the original now, so every Brooklyn is an approximation.
Punt e Mes covers both roles. It is a Carpano vermouth, sweet at the start and then bitter with china bark, as Carpano’s own page, in Italian, describes it, and its name is Piedmontese for a point and a half. One bottle brings the wine, the sugar and the bitterness that a Brooklyn needs three ingredients to build.
Why the Maraschino Doubles
Our Brooklyn takes 7.5ml of maraschino, a seasoning you would struggle to name blind. The Red Hook takes 15ml, and at that measure the cherry stone and bitter almond of the liqueur become a second flavour beside the vermouth.
It needs the weight. In our view, without something sweet and fragrant to answer it, Punt e Mes makes the drink austere. We hold the Punt e Mes at 22.5ml rather than the half ounce, 15ml, that Imbibe gives, so the bitterness is still there at the finish.
The Red Hook Beside Its Parents
The Red Hook, the measures Imbibe publishes and the two drinks it sits between; the units are our calculation at our working figures of 40% for rye, 16% for vermouth and Punt e Mes and 32% for maraschino (Luxardo’s own figure), with Averna at 29% on Difford’s Guide’s listing
Red Hook (ours)
- Whiskey
- 60ml rye
- Vermouth
- 22.5ml Punt e Mes
- Seasoning
- 15ml maraschino
- UK units
- About 3.2
Red Hook (as published)
- Whiskey
- 60ml rye
- Vermouth
- 15ml Punt e Mes
- Seasoning
- 15ml maraschino
- UK units
- About 3.1
Brooklyn
- Whiskey
- 60ml rye
- Vermouth
- 22.5ml dry
- Seasoning
- 7.5ml maraschino, 7.5ml Averna, orange bitters
- UK units
- About 3.3
Manhattan
- Whiskey
- 50ml rye
- Vermouth
- 20ml sweet
- Seasoning
- A dash of Angostura
- UK units
- About 2.3
| Drink | Whiskey | Vermouth | Seasoning | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hook (ours) | 60ml rye | 22.5ml Punt e Mes | 15ml maraschino | About 3.2 |
| Red Hook (as published) | 60ml rye | 15ml Punt e Mes | 15ml maraschino | About 3.1 |
| Brooklyn | 60ml rye | 22.5ml dry | 7.5ml maraschino, 7.5ml Averna, orange bitters | About 3.3 |
| Manhattan | 50ml rye | 20ml sweet | A dash of Angostura | About 2.3 |
The Brooklyn is the drink it is most often set against; the Manhattan is where both of them start.
The Neighbourhood Drinks
Punch says the Red Hook began a run of Manhattan and Brooklyn riffs named after Brooklyn neighbourhoods, the Greenpoint and the Bensonhurst among them. In our view most keep the frame of rye, a modifying wine or amaro and a small sweet measure, and change one bottle.
How to Serve It
Stirred over cubed ice and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora or small coupe, with a cocktail cherry in the glass.
Leave the citrus peel off. Punt e Mes already brings an orange bitterness, and lemon oil over the top only blurs a drink of three bottles.
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 Red Hook cocktail?
Who created the Red Hook?
What is Punt e Mes?
Can I use ordinary sweet vermouth?
How strong is a Red Hook?
Red Hook or Brooklyn: what changes?
Why is it called the Red Hook?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Imbibe, “Red Hook Cocktail” (secondary source, a drinks magazine: created by Italian bartender Vincenzo Errico at Milk & Honey, New York City, in 2003; named after the south Brooklyn neighbourhood, a 19th-century industrial shipping port; the new availability of Punt e Mes behind the bar; 2 oz rye, ½ oz Punt e Mes, ½ oz maraschino; Errico’s quotations).
- Punch, “What is it about the Manhattan and Brooklyn?” (secondary source: the Red Hook “a hybrid between a Manhattan and a Brooklyn created by bartender Vincenzo Errico in 2003”; the Greenpoint, Bensonhurst and other drinks named after Brooklyn neighbourhoods; Amer Picon withdrawn from the American market in the 1990s).
- 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; featured in the Brooklyn).
- Difford’s Guide, “Enzoni” (secondary source: created in 2001 by Vincenzo Errico at Match Bar in London).
- Carpano, “Punt e Mes” (producer’s own page, in Italian: sweet at first, then the bitterness of china, a sweet finish; the 1870 order that gave it its name).
- Luxardo, “Maraschino Originale” (producer’s product page: 32% alc. by vol.).
- Difford’s Guide, “Averna Amaro Siciliano” (secondary source: alc./vol. 29%).
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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.
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