A Perfect Manhattan, From a Substack War Correspondent

Split the vermouth between sweet and dry for a summer-weight version of the drink.

What do you drink when you’re writing a Substack from a warzone? 

One answer is: anything you want. 

Another answer comes from Substack writer Tim Mak, who has a lot more direct experience with this sort of thing than most of us — certainly much more than me. 

Last week, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Mak at an event hosted by Substack to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his publication, The Counteroffensive.

Mak is a longtime Washington, D.C., journalist who has done stints as a reporter at publications ranging from The Washington Examiner to Politico to NPR. Somehow, he’s also an army combat medic. 

A Suderman/Mak event might sound like a strange combination — the cocktail guy and the independent war reporter? — but those of us who make cocktails know that sometimes the best results in life come from mixing two seemingly dissimilar ingredients. 

For the last year, Mak has been reporting from Ukraine, along with a small team he’s built. Among other things, his Substack demonstrates that it’s possible to do the sort of resource-intensive foreign reporting that only major newsrooms used to be able to support. The stories he writes and publishes at The Counteroffensive are vivid and personal, with a zoomed-in, human-interest focus. 

Or, in some cases, animal-interest: A recurring theme at The Counteroffensive is the fate of animals in wartime, as in stories about zoo elephants and a group rescuing displaced dogs. 

You can watch a video of the conversation, courtesy the folks at Substack, below:

We talked about a lot of aspects of the war and his approach to covering it. But at the end, of course, I wanted to know about drinking in Ukraine — specifically drinking at cocktail bars. 

I’ve read pre-war accounts of the Kyiv bar scene that call it “cocktail heaven.” More recent reports say the city’s bar scene is still going strong, with a lot of innovation driven by the supply problems and shortages born of war. What happens when the Coca-Cola factory is under attack and you can’t obtain tonic for cocktails? You make your own. 

Mak concurred: If anything, he said, the bar scene in Kyiv is too good. But there are some notable quirks. Among them: The city’s bartenders don’t quite know how to make a Perfect Manhattan. 

No, not a perfect Manhattan, in the sense of a Manhattan that’s just so delicious and perfect — but a Perfect Manhattan, a slight variation on the classic whiskey/vermouth/bitters formula. 

Wait, what’s a Perfect Manhattan? 

This is a cocktail we haven’t really looked at in this newsletter.¹ But it fits into the line of Manhattan variations we’ve been looking at recently. 

And it’s a great drink for those who find the original Manhattan — which in its most conventional form is made with two parts whiskey (usually but not always rye), one part sweet vermouth, and a couple of dashes of bitters — a little too sweet. 

The Perfect Manhattan takes the vermouth portion of the drink and splits it into two parts, using a half ounce of sweet vermouth and a half ounce of dry vermouth. 

This modest change makes the drink much less sweet, allowing the grape-y acidity of the vermouth — which is, after all, a modified wine — to reorient the drink’s flavor profile. It’s not as lush, not as warm, not as soft as a traditional Manhattan; it’s brighter, lighter, and drier. That makes it particularly suited to warmer weather like we’re having in Washington, D.C., this week. 

Mak’s preferred version of the drink comes from D.C.’s All Souls, a corner cocktail bar in the Shaw neighborhood.

It’s a bourbon-based Manhattan, which makes sense: The natural sweetness of the bourbon helps balance the dryness of the split vermouth.

Because the menu specifies the liquor brands the bar employs — Maker’s 46, Angostura bitters, and a combo of Dolin Rouge and Dolin Dry vermouths — it’s an easy cocktail to make at home. Fortunately, you don’t have to travel to a warzone to try it. 

Perfect (Bourbon) Manhattan

• 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic bitters

• ½ ounce Dolin dry vermouth

• ½ ounce Dolin Rouge sweet vermouth

• 2 ounces Makers 46 bourbon 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. 

2. Add ice, then stir for 20-30 seconds until thoroughly chilled. 

3. Strain into a coupe or Nick & Nora glass.

4. Garnish with a Luxardo maraschino cherry. 

The Big Gal Is Perfect

1. We did, however, look at the Perfect Martini, a similar split vermouth concoction, all the way back in 2021.

The Big Guy’s Last Drink

Blake the bullmastiff, R.I.P.

Before he passed away last Friday, Blake, a.k.a the Big Guy, was a regular at my basement bar.

He helped me hone drinks for this newsletter, which mostly meant listening to me mutter about ratios and flavor profiles. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he probably knew a lot about Cynar and syrups and Negroni specs. More than most dogs, anyway. 

One of Blake’s favorite commands was: “Go to the bar.” When he heard these words, he’d rush to the basement door, bolt down the steps — often with a leap at the bottom — and then sit, at attention, until I arrived to give him a treat.

He would sometimes hang out behind the bar, as if he had a mind to mix me — or himself — a drink.

But he spent most of the time on the big, comfy, half broken leather couch nearby, staring at my various concoctions, sometimes with a bit of well-deserved side-eye. Really? You’re drinking…that?

After Blake learned what “go to the bar” meant, he tried every now and then to reverse the command.

Instead of waiting for me to tell him to go to the bar, he’d nose open the door to the basement, then wait by the bar, sitting up straight like a very good boy, hoping that he could compel me to give him a treat.

Often, it worked.

Like me, Blake was a night owl. We often stayed up late together, long after the gals were off to bed.

Several times a week, I’d get home late from a movie screening or some after-hours work event, and he would come running to greet me, then demand to go down to the bar and hang out.

He loved going down to the bar. We spent a lot of time there together, just the two of us, drinking, reading, listening to music, and silently enjoying the company of another dude. He was my friend. He was my drinking buddy. He was my constant companion.

On his last night, after a difficult day at the vet and the animal hospital, the ladies of the house retreated to bed after dinner. 

But Blake wanted to go down to the bar with me. He was sick. He wasn’t eating, not even treats, but he trotted down the stairs and then sat at attention next to the bar anyway, politely declining to take the bacon-thing I offered him. 

He then went over to the couch and sat down, leaving a spot so that I could sit next to him.

We shared one last drink together, just him and me. The last photo I have of him at home shows him on the couch, in his usual spot, considering me and the cocktail I’d made. 

The final drink I shared with him was a new one to me — a slight twist on an Old Fashioned made with honey syrup and a new-to-me Japanese whisky, Iwai 45. 

Like Blake, it was strong, elegant, beautiful, just about perfect in every way — and over far too soon. 

The drink didn’t have a name. At first I thought about calling it The Big Guy.

But then I realized that a better name would be the other nickname I used for him, because it described both him and the drink so well — 

Big Handsome

• 1 dash orange bitters

• 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic bitters

• 1 fat tsp 3:1 honey syrup*

• 2 ounces Iwai 45 Japanese whisky

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. 

2. Add ice, then stir until chilled. 

3. Strain into a rocks glass over a single large piece of ice. 

4. Garnish with a twist of orange peel. 

*3:1 honey syrup: Combine three parts honey and one part water, by volume. Whisk until combined, about 30-60 seconds. Bottle and store in the fridge.

I would give anything, anything at all, to share another drink with him. But at least the last one was a good one.

R.I.P Blake, the Big Guy, my very best boy.