Metropolitan – David Embury

Made like a Dry Manhattan but with Cognac. Add 2 or 3 dashes of sugar syrup and the same amount of angostura for each drink.

20 years ago, it was the time of the Cosmopolitan, and at some stage someone introduced its foil the Metropolitan. This was simply a Cosmo only using Absolut Kurant instead of straight vodka. It was a very simple adaption, and a good drink to offer variety to a Cosmo drinker. At the time London was going through the vodka craze, where every new bar launch seemed to be a vodka bar, and spirit mags were filled with the latest and greatest vodka. The last big bar launch seemed to be the Purple Bar at the Sanderson Hotel, the vodkas are still coming, only now its flavoured vodka, called gin.

As the array of vodkas on back bars shrank, so did places serving the metropolitan, I don’t think I’ve worked anywhere that carried it for 10-15 years now.

This Metropolitan is much classier than its brash great great great grandson, and has been around, in print since at least 1900. It works really well, the sugar just lifts the dry vermouth making for a more rounded digestif style drink. A great addition to the Manhattan family.