With such a wide choice of incredible cocktail bars in NYC, mixing your own drinks feels a little like going on vacation to Rome and packing pizza ingredients.
There are plenty of places to try a cocktail named after New York, but goddammit if you won’t look sexy as hell when you ask the hottie at your next party where in New York they’re from and you shake up one of these little beauties for them.
1. Manhattan
2oz rye whisky
1/2oz sweet vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 Maraschino cherry
Recipe: Pour all the ingredients (minus the cherry) into a cocktail glass. Now add ice and stir. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Pro tip: You can swap rye whiskey for bourbon if you like.
2. The Brooklyn
1oz rye whiskey
1/2oz dry vermouth
1/4oz Amer Picon
1/4 maraschino liqueur
1 lemon twist or cherry to garnish
Recipe: Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Serve in a chilled cocktail glass with a twist of lemon or cherry.
Pro tip: You can use maraschino cherry juice instead of liqueur, but it can be syrupy and not as good.
3. New York Lemonade
1oz Grand Marnier
2oz citrus vodka
2oz lemon juice
1oz club soda
Lemon juice
Sugar
Recipe: Stir the ingredients and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add a little lemon and sugar to the rim.
Pro tip: Don’t drink too much lemonade, go all Beyonce and make an hour-long music video about what a sleaze Jay-Z is. Or do. Whatever.
4. Staten Island Ferry
2oz Malibu rum
2oz pineapple juice
Recipe: Stir the rum and pineapple juice together and pour over ice in a highball glass. Simple.
Pro tip: Here’s a two-ingredient cocktail even an idiot couldn’t screw up. So don’t screw it up.
5. Bronx Cocktail
2oz gin
1/4oz sweet vermouth
1/4oz dry vermouth
1oz fresh orange juice
1 orange twist to garnish
Recipe: Shake the gin, vermouths and orange juice with ice before straining into a chilled cocktail glass. Add the orange twist. Voila!
Pro tip: Apparently President Taft liked to drink these with breakfast. We’d recommend the very same. Once in awhile. On the weekends.
6. New York Sour
2oz rye whiskey
1oz simple syrup
1oz fresh lemon juice
5oz red wine
Recipe: Pour the whiskey, syrup and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker with some ice and shake it up. Strain into a rocks glass over ice. Now slowly pour the red wine over the back of a spoon so it floats. Looks cool, huh?
Pro tip: Easy does it with the wine. Pouring it, we mean. You can drink as much as you like.
7. Queens Cocktail
Ingredients:
1oz gin
1oz dry vermouth
1oz sweet vermouth
1oz pineapple juice
Recipe: Super easy. Shake all the ingredients together in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Pro tip: Not to be confused with the Queen Elizabeth cocktail, which has nothing to do with NYC. Or England.
Featured cover image: Youtube/Common Man Cocktails