Cheers, New York!
National Cocktail Day is back — another round of the annual celebration of the mixed drink hits bars and restaurants on Monday, March 24.
And while margaritas were recently named the nation’s favorite boozy beverage, Gotham grog guzzlers clearly weren’t consulted.
Turns out, we tend to prefer something a little more sophisticated — not to mention strong.
But what is the Big Apple’s “official” cocktail?
Is it the Manhattan — said to have been invented in the 1880s at the now-extinct Manhattan Club, where elites once networked in classy surroundings over their favorite tipple?
Could it even be the Long Island Iced Tea, the summertime — or, let’s get real, anytime — party drink, invented in the 1970s at LI’s gone-but-not-forgotten Oak Beach Inn?
And one can’t help but wonder — what about the Cosmopolitan, invented a decade later at The Odeon and subsequently made uber-famous by the “Sex and the City” gal pals?
Or even (gasp!) that gauche Gen Z fave, the espresso martini?
Everyone from The Bronx to the Battery seems to have an opinion, so The Post asked several experts to spill their potation pronouncements on the sauce-y subject.
WWCDN? (What Would Carrie Drink Now?)
At the still-with-us Odeon on West Broadway, insiders admit that the as-seen-on “SATC” Cosmopolitan may have, well, Cosmo and gone.
“I think if Carrie Bradshaw was running around New York City today, she would be drinking an Espresso Martini,” Glori Dei Filippone, manager of the Odeon, told The Post regarding Sarah Jessica Parker’s Cosmo-slugging fashionista.
From Lusardi’s on the Upper East Side to Keen’s Steakhouse in Midtown, all the way down to Delmonico’s in the Financial District, bartenders admit — begrudgingly — that the Espresso Martini has taken over.
Dei Filippone declared it “a very New York drink,” explaining that Manhattanites like to get “a buzz on and go, go, go.”
However big the kerfuffle, though, Odeon bartenders served 623 Espresso Martinis in February — compared to 825 Cosmos.
If you couldn’t help but wonder …
The Cosmo was reportedly created by bartender Toby Cecchini — who says he’s never seen an episode of “SATC” — at the Odeon in 1988.
He told The Post he altered a variation of a boozy beverage that a colleague had tasted, replacing grenadine with cranberry juice and squeezing more lime juice than most people do today.
Cecchini claims he began making the pink drink for the bar’s staff in the ’80s — and didn’t expect it to become one of the city’s signature sips.
“Every bartender in the city just hated my guts, including myself,” he joked.
However, Cecchini, who now owns Brooklyn’s The Long Island Bar — which doesn’t exactly encourage the sale of Long Island Iced Teas, if you were wondering — wouldn’t claim that the Cosmo is still the NYC drink.
That title goes to the Martini, he said — echoing the view of more than a few fellow pourers.
Martini madness
“New Yorkers are hard-core; the martini is a very hard-core cocktail,” Cecchini said. “I think people consider it really elegant, but it’s a sucker punch in the face. It’s an aquarium of gin with a little dash of vermouth.”
Uptown at The Carlyle Hotel, the venerable Bemelmans Bar changes its menu twice a year — but the “classic” martinis and Manhattans never leave, Dimitrios Michalopoulos, the bar’s general manager, told The Post.
However, one choice does rise to the top.
“To be honest, everybody comes for a martini,” he said. In fact, the iconic Upper East Side spot offers a whole selection of them.
But do people come in because they have a martini menu — or do they have a martini menu because people come in for them?
It’s a question that could make your head spin as if you’ve had one too many martinis.
The same question could be considered at Smith & Wollensky, which has a selection of signature martinis and Manhattans.
Dirty talk
But Smith & Wollensky and Wollensky’s Grill bartender Timmy Butler also said one drink does stand out.
“Something about a crisp martini just feels so classically New York — maybe it’s the efficiency. It’s no-frills but so satisfying,” Butler told The Post.
He revealed that New Yorkers are “getting more and more ‘dirty’ ” — meaning the bar is typically cleared out of brine and blue cheese olives by the end of the night.
The martini also reigns downtown at Delmonico’s, where it’s typically paired with a nice serving of steak because it cuts through the richness of the meat — and the bulls–t.
“If you’re coming into the bar and ordering yourself a martini, you just want to get the job done immediately,” Dennis Turcinovic, owner and managing partner of Delmonico’s Hospitality Group, told The Post. “That’s really it.”
Espresso yourself — and everyone else
Turcinovic also admitted that the espresso martini has become a caffeinated classic.
“As New Yorkers, we’re in a hurry. So I feel like the martini gets you to the point, and the espresso martini keeps you going for the night,” he said.
Most bar workers can’t deny the force of the espresso martini; however, they can deny the veracity of its title as the town’s top quaff.
“I think for most bartenders and those in cocktail culture, it’s kind of universally agreed upon that it is overrated,” Odeon bartender Jake Williamson told The Post.
He doesn’t even know if it should be considered a martini — something British inventor Dick Bradsell tried to note by naming the drink a vodka espresso.
Williamson believes the best-in-town crown rests safely on the mainstay Manhattan.
“There’s no denying,” Williamson admitted, that an espresso martini “is really good.”
But, he asked: “Is it the best? Is it the signifying cocktail in New York? Absolutely not.
“It’s the Manhattan,” he declared.
They’ll take Manhattans
Bartenders Bill Dante and Michael Regan at the St. Regis Hotel’s Nat King Cole Bar agree that the Manhattan — along with an old-fashioned — deserves to be the toast of the town.
“The old fashioned and the Manhattan have come back big time, very strong,” Dante said, noting what “Sex and the City” did for the Cosmo, Jon Hamm’s 1960s drama “Mad Men” did for the old fashioned.
“We make a lot of them,” he said. That happens even though the bougie bar claims to be where the Bloody Mary was invented.
“Old school cocktails are having a comeback, for sure,” Regan said.
But they also can’t deny the espresso martini’s caffeinated kick.
Regan noted that drinkers “are getting high from it, but you’re not getting sloppy and it keeps you alert — it keeps you awake.”
‘The numbers don’t lie’
That works just fine for imbibers in the City That Never Sleeps who are flocking to Rose Room in Hudson Yards for its dedicated espresso martini bar, with fanciful drink names like Cherry Blossom Bliss, Lychee Rose Love and The Gold Standard.
Turns out the coffee cocktail was outselling every other drink at sister restaurant Queensyard.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Director of Operations Ryan Harris told The Post, declaring the coffee concoction the city’s finest.
“There’s just something that’s become universal about the espresso martini. I mean, everyone’s tired. Everyone wants a pick-me-up.”
Whether ordered with a base of espresso, a twist or a savory splash — some city bars, like Jacs on Bond, are getting crazy with caprese versions — the martini is the drink of New York.
“We’re definitely a martini nation,” Harris declared. “The people have spoken.”
