I'm more than a little embarrassed calling this cocktail The Breukelen. The explosion of "Brooklyn" combined with a penchant for nouveau Brooklynites like myself to dig into history to find names for the everyday mundane means that almost every cocktail bar in the borough has at one time or another had a cocktail called The Breukelen.
Nonetheless, The Brooklyn was already taken, and has been for the better part of a century (2 ounces rye plus 1 ounce dry vermouth plus 1/4 ounce maraschino liqueur plus 1/4 ounce Amer Picon). Keeping it rye based, introducing "history," and making its preparation unnecessarily complicated with a farm-to-glass component gave rise to contemporary Brooklyn's Breukelen.
The Byrrh, an aromatized wine-based apéritif made of red wine and quinine, gives the cocktail an incredible, autumnal red, which is perfect because after buying your cherries in the summer it takes several months before the infusion is ready. —Hi, I'm Brian
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