Wigle Whiskey has released a bottled Manhattan cocktail made with its Pennsylvania rye whiskey and Little City Sweet Vermouth. The Manhattan Ready to Serve is bottled at 34% ABV and is available now at the distillery, the Wigle Ross Park Mall Bottle Shop, and online for shipping within Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
The Pittsburgh-based distillery said the release returns the cocktail’s original whiskey to the region that created it.
The Manhattan first appeared in print in 1882. The whiskey used in it was rye, and in that era the rye Americans drank came from Western Pennsylvania.
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The style was known as Monongahela rye. It was created by Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania German farmers who distilled their grain to move it over the Alleghenies.
The whiskey became the dominant spirit in the country. By 1808, distillers in Allegheny County were producing the equivalent of half a barrel of whiskey for every American alive.
Licensed stills across Western Pennsylvania peaked at roughly 4,000 in the 19th century. Prohibition ended the industry, and American whiskey’s center of gravity moved south to Kentucky.
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READ THE STORY“The Manhattan is the clearest evidence of what was lost — it’s a drink that was designed around a whiskey this region invented, and then spent a century being made with everything except it,” said Alex Moser, chief operating officer at Wigle Whiskey.
“We’re not inventing anything. We’re putting the original ingredient back, our rye whiskey.”
The cocktail is built with the distillery’s Pennsylvania rye and Little City Sweet Vermouth, a small-production vermouth made on Seneca Lake from New York State wine and 53 botanicals.
“The Manhattan has always been a drink that brings the best of different places together in the same glass,” said Will Clark, founder of Little City Vermouth. “Wigle is restoring the Pennsylvania half of it. We bring the New York half.”
The bottle requires no measuring or mixing. It is served over ice with a cherry garnish.
Official tasting notes from the brand cite cherry, bitters and charred orange. The 750ml bottle is priced at $35 (£26).
Wigle Whiskey was the first distillery to open in the City of Pittsburgh since Prohibition. It is named for Philip Wigle, a farmer-distiller convicted of treason for his role in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 and later pardoned by President George Washington.
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