🍸 hallands perfect manhattan

As you may know a Manhattan is a cocktail made from bourbon, sweet vermouth and angostura bitters. It originated in the 19th century in the US and you can read more about it in this nice diffords guide article. It seems like the first recipes had equal amounts of bourbon and vermouth wheres it has moved toward heavier on bourbon over the years. Variants has come about with different combinations of vermouth. A dry one has only the dry kind wheras a perfect manhattan has equal amounts of dry and sweet vermouth.

I never took a liking to manhattan proper but when I found myself with some leftover Hallands Fläder after a crayfish party I started experimenting. Hallands Fläder is a swedish snaps on the weaker end of things and Fläder - of course - means elderflower. I also have a bottle of St Germain on my hands. Elderflower liquer. Aha - interesting. So I mixed them but it was a bit too much elderflower I guess. To even things up I added the perfect mix of vermouth and it turned out really great. I have the Martini brand of both kinds of vermouth.

Recipe:

ice into shaker and 4 parts of Hallands Fläder, 2 parts of St Germain and 1 part each of sweet and dry vermouth.
stir until cold
pour into a coupe

Easy enough right? Enjoy!

written by fredrik at 2026-09-15