Can the Martini-on-the-Rocks Make a Comeback?
Last May, I attended the reopening of the former Campbell Apartment, the secreted watering hole tucked inside Grand Central Terminal . To toast the newly refurbished rococo interior , I ordered a Manhattan. My drink came in a rocks glass. On the rocks. “First night,” I thought. “The staff is still green. They mixed up my order.” But, no. That’s how they do the Manhattan at The Campbell. “It’s a personal preference of mine,” said Vincent Mauriello, the managing partner of Gerber Group, which runs The Campbell. “We thought it was important to create our signature Manhattan. A lot of guests, when they ordered a Manhattan, they requested it on the rocks. It was enough that we thought we should serve it on the rocks.” In cosmopolitan New York City, Campbell’s iced Manhattan is an anomaly. Most craft cocktail bars would sooner serve Zima than a Manhattan on the rocks. But outside the most urbane metropolitan areas , the order is fairly common—as is an item considered even more sacrilegiou...