The Red Hook is a modern classic cocktail with rye whisky, Punt e Mes, and maraschino liqueur, created by Vincenzo Errico at the New York bar Milk & Honey in 2004. Errico, a Neapolitan who had worked in London, named the drink for a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, thus paying homage to a pair of pre-Prohibition rye-based cocktails named for New York boroughs, the Manhattan and the Brooklyn. The Red Hook inspired a number of additional rye-based drinks named after New York neighborhoods from bartenders in New York and elsewhere. These include the Bensonhurst, the Bushwick, the Carroll Gardens, the Cobble Hill, the Greenpoint, the Little Italy, and the Slope. In the process, the Red Hook prompted bartenders to explore alternatives to vermouth and different kinds of bitters (the Punt e Mes in the drink plays the role of both vermouth and bittering component) and, more importantly, helped to usher in a renaissance of stirred aromatic cocktails in general.
Recipe: Stir with ice 60 ml straight rye whisky, 15 ml Punt e Mes, and 15 ml maraschino liqueur. Strain into a cocktail glass, and add a maraschino cherry.
See also Milk & Honey.
By: Chad Solomon