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Time for a Drink: The Slope

Posted by Paul Clarke, November 7, 2008 at 5:00 PM

Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? Hit up the archives. Cheers!

Dating back to the horse-and-buggy era, the Manhattan is one of the most venerable of cocktails—also, to use parlance from the digital era, one of the most hacked.

Countless manifestations of this whiskey-vermouth-bitters combo dot vintage bar manuals, and in recent years, bartenders have been trying out new variations with great success. Here's one from Julie Reiner, owner of Flatiron Lounge in Manhattan and Clover Club in Brooklyn, called the Slope.

Similar in approach to the Red Hook, another Brooklyn-themed Manhattan variation, the Slope—named for the borough's Park Slope neighborhood—utilizes an extra-bitter style of vermouth called Punt e Mes, then tempers the bitterness with the stone-fruit sweetness of apricot liqueur. The result is potent, balanced and memorable; an excellent cocktail for a mid-autumn evening.

Slope

Ingredients

2 1/2 ounces rye whiskey
3/4 ounce Punt e Mes (an Italian vermouth)
1/4 ounce apricot brandy (Marie Brizard’s Apry is recommended)
1 dash Angostura bitters

Procedure

Combine ingredients in a bar glass and add cracked ice. Stir well for 20 seconds and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.

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Tags: Brooklyn, cocktails, Park Slope, vermouth

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