Black Manhattan

There’s a bar here in San Francisco called Bourbon & Branch that helped revive Prohibition-like speakeasy. Many original cocktails have come from the creative minds working there over the years. Perhaps no other has become as famous as the Black Manhattan created in 2005. In it, Averna is used in place of sweet vermouth to create an ominously dark variation of the classic Manhattan. The Black Manhattan has become one of my go-to cocktails and it too is rife for riffing.