Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is locked in a tough reelection fight with Alison Lundergan Grimes, the secretary of state in Kentucky. Throughout the race, he has argued that repeal of Obamacare wouldn’t eliminate the Kentucky exchange—a deceitful strategy to exploit voters’ confusion over the website’s actual role in allowing Kentuckians to purchase insurance. At QED, we always strive to make arguments in the most honest, straightforward manner. But McConnell has a point: It’s a lot easier to sell policy ideas if you obscure the actual consequences of them.
Therefore, for this week’s QED on the Rocks, we designed a delicious cocktail sure to enliven your Friday night. Unlike a certain other news organization's drink of the week, I’ll tell you how to make this one. But there’s a special step at the end—let's call it the McConnell Twist—that really brings it together.
The Mitch Manhattan
2.5 oz bourbon whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth
2-3 dashes aromatic bitters
1 brandied cherry for garnish
4 ice cubes
- Fill a martini glass with ice to chill it
- Add the whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters into a shaker with ice and mix (mixing in a glass works as well)
- Remove ice from martini glass
- Pour mixture into martini glass
- Garnish with cherry
- McConnell Twist: Before handing drink to friend, distract with a magic trick while dumping drink contents into the trash
- Hand martini glass to friend
Drink as many as you like. You'll never get drunk.