Reverse Your Manhattan

Put vermouth in the driver's seat with this lush, sweet inversion.

At the beginning of the month, I sketched out the toolkit for making low — or at least lower — proof cocktails: sherry, low-proof amari like Cynar, and other fortified wines like vermouth. We’ve already looked at the first two. So as we close out lower proof January, we’ll examine a cocktail built on a foundation of sweet vermouth. 

It’s one of the most classic cocktails of them all: the Manhattan — but in reverse proportions.

Instead of a base of whiskey augmented by half as much sweet vermouth, it’s the other way around, with a two-ounce base of sweet vermouth augmented by a single ounce of whiskey. It’s an inversion of the typical relationship, and if you get it right, it’s sumptuous, sublimely delicious, and borderline decadent. 

It’s not quite a low-proof drink, in that it still contains a full ounce of whiskey. But it is lower proof, and thus a candidate for inclusion in lower-proof January. (It’s also a preview of the Manhattan variations we’ll be looking at starting soon.)

Already, I can hear some of you asking, perhaps with more than a hint of skepticism in your tone, if this won’t produce a drink that is wildly oversweet, with sugary vermouth drowning out the boozy, brooding kick of the whiskey.

There are several ways to answer that question.

The first is that that if what you really want is whiskey, and mostly whiskey, then maybe this drink isn’t for you. Certainly, it’s sweeter than a traditional Manhattan. Not every drink is for everyone, though I think all Manhattan fans should at least try this cocktail with an open mind.

The second is that, on the other hand, the proportions of a reverse Manhattan are not too dissimilar from the proportions of a classic equal parts Boulevardier, with two ounces of modifier to a single ounce of whiskey. If you like a Boulevardier, then you might well enjoy a Reverse Manhattan. 

A third response is that it’s still a Manhattan, just a very different Manhattan, in the sense that the Manhattan is a liquid poem about the interplay between whiskey and sweet vermouth; this version of the drink merely inverts that relationship to surprising and delightful effect. It’s not quite a deconstructed Manhattan, but it can be understood as a Manhattan from a different perspective.

As a child, I recall being shocked and surprised by an elementary school reading of a children’s book that retold the story of the three little pigs through the eyes of the Big Bad Wolf, essentially flipping the usual relationship.¹

That sort of modernist inversion isn’t for everyone, and perhaps some of my classmates felt betrayed by this reversal of perspective, this upending of the usual protagonist/antagonist dynamic. 

I, on the other hand, found it clever and fascinating: It was, at heart, the same story I’d heard so many times, but from a completely different vantage point. 

In a sense, that’s the Reverse Manhattan.

It’s the same familiar cocktail, but from a flipped perspective, with vermouth as the protagonist and rye in a supporting role, shedding new light on the main characters and their motives. Of course, like the classic Manhattan, constructing this story still requires some care. Like all such cocktails, it’s a matching problem, about getting the right ingredients and augmentations to make everything work together. 

He Will Flip You, For Real

Consider the structure of a classic Manhattan: Two parts whiskey (often though not always rye) to one part sweet vermouth, with two dashes of aromatic to ground the drink and give it added spice and complexity. When it works, it’s chilly, spicy, strong, and peppery, with some sily sweetness to soften the drink and round out the rougher edges of the rye. There’s a bite, but not too much of one, and a sharp, dry edge that is mediated by the velvety sweetness: It’s like a big, sharp stone that’s been wrapped in fur. 

A Reverse Manhattan flips that on its head: It’s mostly fur, wrapped around a much smaller stone. The velvety softness dominates. It’s cozier, the cocktail equivalent of a pair of extra soft pajamas. 

The question, then, is how soft and comfy you want this drink to be. And to a large degree, that question is answered by your choice of vermouth, or vermouths, or vermouth and… maybe a hint of something else. 

The Reverse Manhattan puts sweet vermouth in the driver’s seat, so it’s an excellent drink for experimenting with rare, unusual, or less-often-used bottles, beyond the core trio I typically recommend.