Two More Easy Manhattan Variations (That Are Really Just Brooklyns)

Also: What erotic thrillers have to do with the Manhattan riffs of the 00s.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s—films like Body Heat, Jagged Edge, Fatal Attraction, even Basic Instinct. I promise this relates directly to cocktails.

All of these films were different, of course; you wouldn’t mistake one for another. But they were variations on a theme, a subgenre of sorts, and aimed at similar middlebrow adult audiences. If you liked one, you probably liked another.

Most offered some sort of novel angle on the genre, something to set each film apart. But they also tended to recycle a handful of elements: forbidden love, fiendish murder, ordinary men with seemingly placid domestic lives caught up in darkness and desire. In the end, there’s always a twist and some central mystery is resolved, with all of the major plot questions conveniently wrapped up.

With their combination of R-rated sex and violence, and their explorations of the dark underbelly of American life, they were clearly modern works aimed at modern audiences. But they were also historically derived, drawing from classic noirs. And with their emphasis on murder mysteries, shocking twists, and tidy resolutions,most owed some debt to Agatha Christie. Many were quite popular, and a few became minor modern classics.

Hollywood still makes thrillers like this, but they are no longer mainstays of the multiplex. These days, they’re mostly TV fodder, which is where adult-oriented middlebrow offerings now reside. Fatal Attraction was remade as a TV series, as was Presumed Innocent, a not-quite-erotic thriller in a similar vein. I haven’t seen either.

Those erotic thrillers were a product of a specific era, a particular cultural milieu. They were a good way to make a name for yourself in Hollywood. They helped build the careers of Jeff Bridges, Michael Douglas, and Glenn Close, among others. If you wanted to become a star in 1980s Hollywood, a tight, twisted, erotic thriller was a pretty good bet.

I’ve been thinking about these movies because I enjoy them, and I wasn’t able to enjoy the genre in its prime. I was a kid when Jagged Edge came out, so I didn’t discover it until the bizarro superhero-lawyer cartoon Harvey Birdman parodied it nearly two decades later in the episode “Death By Chocolate.”¹

But I’ve also been thinking about these movies because they have a lot in common with cocktails—specifically, with Manhattan/Brooklyn riffs from the early days of the cocktail renaissance.

It’s probably an exaggeration to say that Manhattan riffs were the key drinks of the cocktail renaissance. But in New York, in the 2000s, at the center of the revolution, they were heavy hitters. Drinks like the Little Italy, the Bushwick, and the Red Hook played a significant role. They helped build the reputations of bartenders who would go on to be key players.

Like the erotic thrillers of the 1980s, they were understood as variations on a popular theme, and they were very much products of a specific time and cultural milieu. They were entries in a booming, popular subgenre, targeting similar audiences with a familiar form and repeat elements—Rittenhouse rye bases, maraschino liqueur, amaro.

But each brought something novel to the format, giving fans a new entry point, a new twist on a familiar experience. And while they were very clearly modern creations, relying on new-to-the-scene ingredients, they were all rooted in cocktail history, drawing inspiration from the Manhattan and the Brooklyn in particular, but also, in their employment of then-obscure bitter liqueurs, from the Negroni and the Boulevardier.

And like the erotic thrillers of the 1980s, I wasn’t around to njoy them at their peak. Technically, I was old enough to drink during the 00s, but I didn’t have a proper cocktail until 2009 or so. And by the time I understood enough about modern mixed drinks to grasp the connections, new riffs on this style of cocktail had started to fall out of fashion—though some of the originals have become minor modern classics.

But as with those 80s thrillers, it’s still possible to experience these drinks at home. Not only are they delicious, rich, slow sippers, perfect for cool, dark winter nights, they are also easy to make, consisting of just a few relatively easy-to-find ingredients. Like those thriller, the Manhattan/Brooklyn riffs of the 00s were aimed at an adult, middlebrow audience: They were sophisticated in certain ways, but they were also simple pleasures, rather than the complex, sometimes convoluted, cocktails that make news today. They were designed to be popular and accessible.

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of modern cocktails from that era is that they were intended to replicable—so that almost any bar, or home bartender, with the relevant bottles could make these drinks for themselves.

So today, we’re going to make two more of these Manhattan/Brooklyn riffs.

• The first takes last week’s three-ingredient crowd-pleaser and swaps in Chartreuse (or a blend, if you’re feeling the squeeze from the Chartreuse shortage).

• The second calls for a lesser-known amaro, so we’ll discuss potential swaps and substitutions.

Both are tasty, warming, wintry, surprisingly complex, and incredibly easy to make once you have the ingredients. Conveniently, they are also both batchable.

Red Hulk, Green Hulk

In last week’s newsletter, we made the Red Hook, a simple combination of rye whiskey, Punt e Mes vermouth, and maraschino liqueur.