Little Italy Cocktail - A Modern Classic - The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess

It was Fall of 2005 and Audrey Saunders had only just opened the Pegu Club in New York. She was working hard to introduce customers to drinks that didn’t focus on vodka. It was a brave new world. Opening up The Pegu Club involved breaking ground in a lot of areas as well as getting new products into the hands of bartenders.

We have Audrey to thank for popularizing rye whiskey, showing us how to work with vermouth and Amari again, as well as bringing Luxardo maraschino cherries into bars. To illustrate the value of these ingredients, Audrey created the Little Italy, her popular riff on the classic Manhattan.

There really isn’t a substitute for either the Cynar, or the Luxardo cherries in this recipe. Both of these ingredients are commonly found in craft cocktail bars, and are quickly making inroads into most bars across the country.

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Recipe:
2 oz. Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey
1/2 oz. Cynar
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth

Instructions:
Stir ingredients with ice.
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with Luxardo maraschino cherries, along with a dash of their syrup.