The Saratoga

cocktail, popular from the late 1880s until American Prohibition, is not one drink but two: two competing, very different formulae that shared one name (Saratoga Springs, New York, was famed for its mineral springs, its racecourse, and the high play at its gambling houses). The first drink, a 2:1 Manhattan with half the whisky replaced by brandy, appeared in the 1887 posthumous edition of Jerry Thomas’s Bar-Tenders Guide; the second, a fancy Brandy Cocktail with a “squirt” of champagne, was published by Harry Johnson the following year. See Manhattan, Johnson, Harry. For the next thirty years, mixologists took sides: where one appeared, the other was excluded. Johnson’s version, perhaps the most common, frequently saw its expensive champagne replaced by soda water (as was sometimes done in Saratoga Springs, with whisky substituted for the brandy) or omitted entirely, while in Europe the “Jerry Thomas” version saw its American whisky replaced with scotch or Irish versions. Neither version was simple enough to withstand Prohibition mixologists, and by the 1930s the drinks were a mere memory.

Modern mixologists occasionally trot out the Jerry Thomas version as a substitute (and an exceptionally toothsome one it is) for the Manhattan.

Recipe (the Johnson version): Stir with ice 45 ml old cognac, 5 ml maraschino, 5 ml pineapple syrup, 2 dashes aromatic bitters; strain into coupe; add strawberry and 15–30 ml chilled champagne; garnish with a lemon twist.“The Summer Season.” Baltimore Sun, August 18, 1892, 3.

Wondrich, David. Imbibe!, 2nd ed. New York: Perigee, 2015.

By: David Wondrich