Greenpoint Cocktail

Named after the ubiquitous Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn, the Greenpoint is a variation on the Brooklyn cocktail. First stirred up by Michael McIlroy in the legendary NYC bar Milk & Honey, the Greenpoint features Yellow Chartreuse and sweet vermouth instead of dry vermouth, Amer Picon, and maraschino liqueur. 

Greenpoint Ingredients

• Rye whiskey – 2 ounces (60ml)
• Yellow Chartreuse – ½ ounce (15ml)
• Sweet vermouth – ½ ounce (15ml)
• Angostura bitters – 1 dash
• Orange Bitters – 1 dash
• Lemon twist – Garnish

How to Make a Greenpoint Cocktail

Making a Greenpoint is fairly straightforward. Make sure you have a good mixing glass and a decent strainer, and you should be good to go. 

1. Fill a coupe, cocktail, or martini glass with crushed ice or ice and water. Set aside to let chill. 
2. Add rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, yellow chartreuse, orange bitters, and Angostura bitters to a mixing glass over cracked ice. Stir until visibly chilled or sufficiently diluted. 
3. Dump the ice from your glass and single-strain the contents of your mixing glass into it. Make sure there are no ice chips present in the liquid. 
4. Express your lemon twist over the drink, rim the glass with the rine, and use as a garnish. 
5. Enjoy!

This wouldn’t be the first time that Chartreuse and Sweet Vermouth would come together to form a perfect cocktail. The Bijou cocktail, a tingling party in your mouth, features gin, Green Chartreuse, and sweet vermouth with a couple of dashes of bitters. Needless to say, it’s a winning combination, especially when you add rye to the mix. 

Yellow Chartreuse is a part of the mysterious Chartreuse family of spirits, first distilled in the 19th century by Carthusian monks using 130 secret botanicals and spices. The depth of flavor that it can add to any cocktail can’t be understated, with surprising notes of anise, peppercorn, and lemongrass just to name a few. 

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Today, the Greenpoint isn’t exactly the most well-known cocktail out there, and by no means is it as famous as its grandfather, the Manhattan.

However, walking into a bar with a mixologist who knows their stuff, you should be able to get one no problem. Even easier, you can make it at home yourself so you can enjoy this fantastic drink whenever you’d like. 

History

The Manhattan, first mixed in 1880, is a legendary cocktail that has spawned many different variations and twists on the two-parts rye, one-part vermouth with bitters recipe over the years.

The second generation of Manhattan-esque cocktails was named after the other boroughs of NYC, like the Brooklyn (rye, dry vermouth, Amer Picon, and maraschino liqueur) and the Bronx, classics in their own right at this point. 

However, you might not know that the twists go even deeper than the other boroughs. Bartenders needed their creations to stand out, so they started naming them after specific neighborhoods around the city. It was out of this generation of new-classics that the Greenpoint was born