Left Hand Cocktail Recipe

The Left Hand is a spirit-forward, Negroni variation combining bourbon, Campari, candy vermouth, and chocolate bitters. 

This contemporary traditional cocktail was created at Sasha Petraske’s pioneering cocktail bar Milk & Honey in New York Metropolis in 2005 by Sam Ross, the bartender behind different up to date classics such because the Penicillin and Paper Aircraft.

In Concerning Cocktails, the 2016 e book detailing the various cocktails that got here out of Milk & Honey’s 14 yr run, author Georgette Moger-Petraske, Petraske’s widow, interviews every of the cocktail’s creators. Within the e book, Sam Ross notes that the Left Hand was a part of household of cocktails dreamed up on the bar.

“We created a sequence of ‘Hand’ cocktails within the early days of Milk & Honey,” he says. “The Proper Hand was an aged-rum take; Tres Arms was its mezcal and tequila sister; and the Smoking Hand was her brother from Islay and the Highlands.” 

The Left Hand attracts inspiration from each the Manhattan and the Negroni. Although the Negroni had a big resurgence in fashionable tradition within the mid to late-2000s, the drink was an early favourite of craft bartenders by 2005. 

“Earlier than the Boulevardier got here again into prominence, this was a bourbon riff on the Negroni that we created utilizing the newly launched chocolate bitters from Bittermen’s,” Ross says within the e book. “Sasha reserved his compliments for only some drinks, however this was one in every of our cocktails within the ‘Hand’ sequence that he liked. ‘Properly performed, Sam,’ he stated.”

Why the Left Hand works

Whereas the Left Hand shares DNA with a number of classics, together with the bourbon-based Boulevardier, the distinction in ingredient proportions, the ice-free serve, and the addition of chocolate bitters, considerably adjustments up the profile. 

The upper ratio of bourbon makes for a extra whiskey-forward drink. Campari and candy vermouth is named for in equal components, matching the bourbon notes of vanilla, caramel and charred oak whereas including bittersweet citrus and natural complexity.

Chocolate bitters is the slight differentiator that enhances every ingredient. It naturally enhances the cocoa and spice undertones within the whiskey, balances the bitterness within the Campari, and offers a nutty depth to the candy vermouth. The brandied cherry garnish lends extra sweetness to the stirred cocktail, and is a nod to a traditional Manhattan.