Jacques Pépin Keeps This Simple Cocktail In Steady Rotation — And It's Unexpectedly Familiar

One of the most perpetually popular cocktails of all time is the classic Manhattan. Invented in the late 1800s in New York City, it's a simple but genius combination: a Manhattan consists of whiskey and sweet vermouth. The result is a warming cocktail with rounded sweetness balancing the heat of the booze. The sweet vermouth, an aromatized and fortified wine contributes richness and botanical, herbaceous, spiced complexity. The whiskey brings caramel, vanilla, honey, wood, and tobacco — and rye whiskey in particular is ideal for a Manhattan because its spice further balances the drink's sweetness. The Manhattan is delicious and takes about 30 seconds to make, so how could it get any better? With a flip.

The "reverse Manhattan" is one of Jacques Pépin's go-to cocktails, and if this world-renowned chef promises something tastes good, we tend to listen. He shared the recipe on the Jacques Pépin Foundation's Instagram page, demonstrating that instead of the Manhattan's standard ratio of two parts whiskey to one part vermouth, he does two parts vermouth to one part whiskey. Technically, the ratio is even more skewed toward the former, as Pépin nearly fills the glass with vermouth and then splashes in 1 ½ tablespoons of whiskey — the point is that reimagining the Manhattan's proportions gives you greater flexibility to mix it how you like it. Plus, this 180 brings down the alcoholic strength of the cocktail since vermouth's average ABV range is about 15% to 22%, compared to whiskey's 40% to 45%.

That ABV-lowering is one of the main goals in making reverse cocktails, which flip a cocktail's standard proportions. The flipped Manhattan Pépin makes remains as simple as making a conventional Manhattan with just two ingredients — he does add lime, too, for some brightness — and still captures that familiar flavor profile, but with less strength and more emphasis on the vermouth. Pépin told Food & Wine he and his wife often enjoyed this cocktail before dinner, adding that another one of their favorites was French wine. This highlights how perfect a reverse Manhattan is for wine lovers, too. In fact, any reverse cocktail that results in more vermouth will bring forward more wine flavors considering that's vermouth's base.

Interestingly, when the Manhattan was invented, it's believed that its ratio was closer to that of this reverse Manhattan — therefore, it's technically even more traditional. Once you try this vermouth-forward version, you may wonder why the proportions ever skewed so much toward the whiskey. Whether you're a wine connoisseur or a whiskey enthusiast, being able to more fully taste the sweet vermouth in this cocktail promises to get you wanting to learn more about vermouth, long seen as merely a small-dose cocktail ingredient in the United States but enjoyed on its own or with soda throughout Europe. Once you start your vermouth exploration, get creative with your reverse Manhattan — split it between dry and sweet vermouth, for example, for a beautifully balanced, complex finish.