red hook

2 oz Old Overholt Rye
1/2 oz Punt e Mes
1/4 oz Maraschino Liqueur (*)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.
(*) Most recipes for this drink are listed as 1/4-1/2 oz Maraschino by taste.

Tuesday last week, I met up with Andrea at Stoddard's in Boston. For my first drink, I asked bar manager Jamie Walsh for the Red Hook which was one of the more modern drinks from their classics section. The drink is credited to Enzo Errico who created it at Milk & Honey in New York sometime between 2000 when the bar first opened and 2005 when Paul Clarke first wrote about it. Jessica, who founded this blog, wrote about the drink in 2007, and I left a comment in that post that I first tried that drink several months before at the legendary B-Side Lounge in Cambridge. Since I had not had this Manhattan variation (or a Brooklyn variation making it two steps from a Manhattan) in a while, I felt it was worth revisiting. Beside the similarity to the Manhattan, the drink always reminds me of the Fancy Free which lacks the Punt e Mes in exchange for Angostura and orange bitters (also generally made with Bourbon instead of rye). Moreover, between my last Red Hook a few years ago and this one, I tried Ryan Lotz' Bols Genever and dry vermouth variation called the White Hook which was in the style of Max Toste's White Manhattan.
The Red Hook's Maraschino liqueur dominated the drink's aroma. A sweet, faintly grape sip was chased by rye's heat, Maraschino's funkiness, and Punt e Mes' bitter notes (in that order). The Maraschino and Punt e Mes seem to pair up to sooth the intensity of the other and make the Red Hook a more drinkable potation.