Mirroring the glittering towers that populate the landscape of its namesake, the Manhattan is an outstanding cocktail that looms in a majestic grandeur all its own.
It might as well be called an ‘Old Manhattan’ the way its roots reach back to the second half of the 19th century. Based on surviving documentation, this iconic blend of amber spirits and vermouth has been shaken with ice and poured for over 150 years.
The paradox of reporting on the invention of extremely popular food and drink classics is the twofold concern that (1) different individuals lay claims for personal gains and (2) it’s worth valuing the probability that different people around the same time had epiphanies leading to matching basic elements and changing the game forever after.
Reference the ongoing debates over who to credit for the creation of pasta, chicken wings or the Flamin’ Moe, for example. The due diligence to trace the invention of the Manhattan has now hereby been completed and unfolds before your eyes. You are by all means encouraged to impress your friends in retelling this narrative the next time Manhattans are cheered. If anyone questions your sources for proof, you can remind them the truth is in the eye—or in this case the v-shaped glass—of the beholder.
One fact we can be certain of is to start in the central borough of New York City. Located on 25th Street overlooking Madison Square Park in what is today known as the Flatiron District, The Homan House was a luxury (or ‘palace’) hotel with a gilded reputation for housing and entertaining an impressive roster of patrons.
The establishment was largely associated with members of the influential Tammany Hall. Scandalous leader William Magear Tweed, better known as ‘Boss’ Tweed, was a resident. Grover Cleveland was camped out there in 1893 when he received word he had won the presidential election, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms. Business moguls and marquee stars of the era like Old West icon William F. ‘Bualo Bill’ Cody and the French actress Sarah Bernhardt made up the rest of the clientele. They gathered in the aptly suited bar, world-renowned at the time for its grandiose size and celebrated art gallery.
The opulent bar of the Homan House is the setting where we find our contact to guide us back through history. William F. Mulhall was a bartender who chronicled the highlights of his time there in a chapter called “The Golden Age Of Booze” for the 1923 anthology Valentine’s Manual of Old New York. A digital scan of the entire volume is available online courtesy of the Internet Archive, and it is a captivating read.
Mulhall explains, “When I went to the Homan House at the corner of 25th Street and Broadway in September 1882, there were sixteen good men and true on duty behind the bar and I became the seventeenth.” He recalled, “That bar was known all over the civilized world and became more famous as the years rolled by. The bar itself was a magnificent structure of carved mahogany, the mirrors that lined the walls were said to be the largest in America. The ceiling was very lofty and every detail of the furniture and fixtures was of the most elegant and costly kind.”
Pages later, Mulhall delivers the only documented account of the answer we’ve sought, confirming, “The Manhattan cocktail was invented by a man named Black, who kept a place ten doors below Houston Street on Broadway in the (eighteen) sixties—probably the most famous drink in the world in its time. The cocktail made America famous and there were many varieties of them. In fact, the variety was infinite. I remember at the Homan in the old days a gentleman would come in and sit down to a table with his party and the waiter would come over and order his particular formula for the party.”
William’s tales of long-ago drinking culture are fascinating to absorb; for all the details he shares about former champion boxers working as bouncers, bartenders acclaimed for outlandish vest collections and how champagne became fashionable in America, he leaves out major points one wonders about the Manhattan. What was the name of the bar owned by the innovative genius known as Black? What moment of divine inspiration first brought the drink to fruition? Beyond the rye and vermouth, was there any cherry, lemon peel or garnish involved? These points are now lost to time.
As scholars committed to upholding truthfulness, there remains a gap of clarity we must address—the confusion of the popular theory that the Manhattan was invented at the Manhattan Club. Situated exactly one street North and one avenue East from the Homan House at the corner of 26th street and Madison Avenue, the Manhattan Club was the venue for a December 29th, 1874 party in honor of Samuel J. Tilden, who had just won the recent election in November to become Governor of New York.
Tilden had gained significant popularity by denouncing the corruption of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed in particular, after the latter’s account books were provided to The New York Times and caused a public uproar to put an end to the bribery, violence, and other reprehensible methods Boss Tweed utilized to gain political power.
The widely accepted story goes that a prominent guest at the event was one Lady Randolph Churchill. A British socialite born in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, she allegedly asked the bartender at the party to make up something new that had never been done before. The unnamed bartender rose to the challenge and poured out a blend of American whiskey, Italian vermouth and angostura bitters that stunned the crowd with its sophisticated flavor. Word-of-mouth about this drink rapidly spread, leading customers in other places to order it by referring to the bar of its invention; the ‘Manhattan’ from the Manhattan Club. Without Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine, the only tangible things an investigative journalist can cling to are facts. As scarce as they may be, names, maps, and quotes are the critical instruments we employ. Of most paramount importance are dates, and therein is the ruse of the Manhattan Club falsehood.
The date of the Tilden banquet was December 29th, 1874, following the New York State election held the month prior on November 3rd, 1874. Readers may already guess per her surname, Lady Randolph Churchill was the mother of British Prime Minister, war leader and self-proclaimed “man of destiny” Sir Winston Churchill. He was born on November 30th, 1874, in Blenheim Palace. This extravagant property stands in the county of Oxfordshire, Southeast England. 3,000 miles of ocean divide England and New York City. The space between the more precise coordinates of Blenheim Palace to the Manhattan Club is closer to 3,400 miles. Was Lady Randolph able to make the transatlantic trip by steamer (approx. 8-9 days) so soon after giving birth to Winston Leonard Spencer and be present at the Manhattan Club party only 29 days later?
Before she was Lady Randolph Churchill, she was Jennie Jerome, born into a family of exorbitant wealth amassed by her father, financier Leonard Jerome. The main family residence where Jennie was raised was the Jerome Mansion, also home of the Manhattan Club. Is this yet another unfair case of history being overwritten by the rich and powerful to claim credit that truly belongs to the working class whose names disappear from record?
Consider the facts and draw your own conclusions. It stands to reason that the Manhattan was invented somewhere in SoHo sometime in the 1860’s and then exploded in popularity after being adopted by the Manhattan Club, regardless of the guest list commemorating the triumph of Tilden at the polls.
Whatever happened in the 19th century, to this day, the Manhattan is truly in a class of its own and second to none. Raise a glass to toast the illustrious group involved in the legend; William Mulhall, Samuel Tilden, Lady Randolph Churchill and most importantly the mystery bartender named Black and his forgotten SoHo bar ten doors down from Houston on Broadway.
The post The Golden Age of American Cocktails and the Mystery of the Manhattan appeared first on Chilled Magazine.
Source: Mixology News
