Deep in the basement of his Brooklyn brownstone, designer Jay Anning's kitchen is done out like a classic American diner - red-vinyl chairs around a Formica counter, kitsch wall-mountings and a jukebox. Here he, his upstairs neighbour James Waller, and some liquor gurus researched the raw materials for Waller's new cocktails recipe book, Drinkology.
"We tested well over 1,000 cocktails in this kitchen and invented some new ones," Waller said. He stirred up his favourite - a classic manhattan, and explained that it was originally concocted in New York for an 1874 party hosted by Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston's mother.
One of Waller's favourite bars is a Big Apple institution, the Old King Cole Bar at the St Regis Hotel on Fifth Avenue, which is the place where in 1934 bartender Fernand Petiot first added salt, pepper, lemon and Worcestershire sauce to the simple tomato juice and vodka mix he had invented in Paris, and called it a bloody mary.
For a less historical but also less stuffy experience, Waller recommends The Temple bar and Bistro Les Amis in SoHo. But why is New York such a cocktail town? Anning's answer was to flick on the bar scenes from a tape of the 1930s classic film The Thin Man. Martinis all the way.
Julie Reiner, owner of the Flatiron Lounge cocktail bar and well-known city mixology consultant, believes the pizazz of New York's heyday in the first quarter of the last century has never quite died. "People live in really small spaces in New York, but it is a chic place so they like to go and hang out with friends. They cab it around the place, and there are lots of parties. It is a very work hard, play hard city," she says.
And the city's twin obsession with the traditional and the brand new means you will always find classic cocktails cheek by jowl with new inventions.
So, whether you have shopped yourself dry, or are in need of an imaginative snifter before and/or after a Broadway show, here are some suggestions.
Best view: The Ritz-Carlton
Battery Park, Lower Manhattan (+212 3440800) The cocktail lounge at the top of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Battery Park, is so close to the harbour and Statue of Liberty that its signature drink is the libertini - served in heavy glasses with coloured, swizzled stems.
It is an international chain hotel, so the suited crowd and piped music are bland, but the panorama can't be beaten.
Sit inside with finger food, rocket fuel and picture windows, or hit the summer outdoor roofdeck to sip and smoke (a rarity since the smoking ban was imposed on New York's bars last March).
One for the road: libertini (citrus vodka, peach liquor, midori, blue curaçao, lemon juice); phat apple (dessert substitute).
Best for celebrities: The Mercer Hotel
99 Prince St, SoHo (+212 966 6060) Peep (don't stare) over the salted rim of your margarita in the bar or restaurant here and you might just catch sight of Russell Crowe, Pink, Quentin Tarantino or Calvin Klein. They stay at the hotel, they eat, they drink here. The atmosphere is upscale but laid back. Are those hip-hop bigshots over there with three mobile phones each, shiny suits, trophy broads and bling-bling jewellery? P Diddy or Jay-Z in the house? "No, they're drug barons," said the helpful hostess. Oh. But who's that nondescript guy over there playing drinking games with some buddies? It's Mike "Austin Powers" Myers. Wowee. One for the road: passionfruit or ginger margarita; dirty martini (ie with olives and a splash of olive 'juice').
Best for breaking the bank: Club Macanudo
26 E63rd St, Upper East Side (+212 752 8200) At $63 (with tax and tip, call it $75), the 63rd Street martini is the most expensive in New York. It is served in a classic martini glass but mixed from a rare, aged Chateau Font Pino XO cognac made with champagne grapes, Belle de Brille pear cognac liqueur, Real Companhia 20-year-old port and Fiji pear nectar. If you think that is extravagant, the Macallan 1946 malt whisky is $300 a shot. Congressmen rub shoulders with professionals and entrepreneurs in the convivial but old-club atmosphere, and smoking is de rigueur - as an official cigar bar with 500 privately rented, computer-controlled humidors lining the walls, it has an exemption from the ban. One for the road: 63rd Street or mojito with a hand-rolled Cuban.
Best for atmosphere: Chez es Saada
42 E1st St, East Village (+212 777 5617) For the perfect combination of cocktails, food, music, art, and atmosphere, head for this revitalised restaurant and bar. The place is strewn with rose petals and lit with intricate Moroccan lamps. Walls, ceiling and seating hand-painted in bright colours warm the mood even before cocktails featuring watermelon, pomegranate or sugared rose petal appear. Dainty north African dishes are served on mirrored tables.
Israeli-born New Yorker Izhar Patkin designed it and installed one of his series of vividly-painted rubber curtains across a wall - the others are in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). DJ Lucienne, who used to pull crowds to the bar on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, mixes the fusion music.
One for the road: es saada (Grey Goose l'orange vodka, pomegranate juice, triple sec, lime).
Best to be seen in: Pravda
281 Lafayette St, SoHo (+212 226 4944) Eastender-turned-New Yorker Keith McNally has made his name in the Apple with old-style Parisien bistros and liquor bars with a modern twist, often controversially-located where they bring Sex And The City types to edgy areas and accelerate gentrification. The hit TV series has been filmed at Pravda, and a boisterous urban crowd flocks here at all times. Pravda is a temple to the art - watch master bartenders flinging bottles around and shaking two drinks simultaneously. The nouvelle Russian theme means plenty of vodka and trays of caviar. One for the road: saké martini (vodka, dry saké with dash of plum wine and slices of cucumber); russian mary (chilli and horseradish vodka, tomato and lime juice).
Best for style: The Flatiron Lounge
37 W19th St, Flatiron (+212 727 7741) This relaxed, sophisticated lounge is, unusually, owned by four women. Hawaiian-born Julie Reiner and three native New Yorker thirtysomething pals were bored of managing bars so instead opened their own around the corner from the famous Flatiron building six months ago. Despite being new, everything about it is classic, from the sultry lighting and lounge jazz to the long 1930s mirrored, hard-wood bar and art-nouveau fittings. An intimate but lively setting, Julie's crew are as happy mixing a classic mai tai or sidecar as their speciality fruit and spice infusions. One for the road: flight of the day (round of three mini-cocktails that changes daily); cherry smash (brandied cherries mixed with kirsch and cognac).
Best-kept secret: The Campbell Apartment
Grand Central Terminal. Entrance on Vanderbilt Avenue (+212 953 0409) Grand Central Terminal (alias Grand Central Station) on 42nd St, was transformed in 1998, after a decade of work and $200m, from a frightening grotto back into the shining star of Mark Twain's early 20th-century New York Gilded Age. Tucked away in the corner of this magnificent municipal space is The Campbell Apartment bar. The gigantic room was the private office and entertainment space of John W Campbell, president of the Credit Clearing House that monitored corporate credit in the 1920s and 1930s. The surviving interior style of a 13th-century Florentine palazzo is Campbell's original. Packed with Connecticut commuters enjoying beer and cigars early evening, it is a relaxing speakeasy at other times and prides itself on "cocktails from a bygone era", such as the sidecar, manhattan or old fashioned. One for the road: prohibition punch (passionfruit juice, grand marnier, champagne); sidecar.
Best new bar: The MO Bar and Lobby Lounge
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 60 Columbus Circle, Lincoln Square Center (+212 805 8880) At the south-west corner of Central Park an edifice is rising. The Time Warner complex is a $1.8bn towering structure that will contain the media company's headquarters, retail emporia and apartments costing up to $45m. Part of the huge space contains the new Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which has aspirations to be known as the most luxurious hotel in the world (at $12,595 a night, it boasts the most expensive hotel suite in the city). The reception and lobby are on the 35th floor, where an open-plan lounge overlooks part of Central Park across to the Upper East Side. A discreet doorway leads off into the MObar. Cocktails can be ordered at the bar for intimacy or the lounge for the view. One for the road: MOpolitan (Bacardi, Cointreau, white cranberry juice, lemon juice, blood orange juice); mandarin blossom (tangerine and lemongrass infused gin, white Lillet - an armagnac-based aperitif, tangerine juice).
· Drinkology, The Art And Science Of The Cocktail, by James Waller, is published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang at £15.95.
Mixing it closer to home
Wine tutor Rose Murray Brown swaps cabernets for cosmopolitans once a month to give an evening's tuition in 'mixology' at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews or Edinburgh's Point Hotel. 'We do seven drinks with seven spirits,' she says, 'and I'm trying out a new cucumber martini...'
· £25pp, 01334 870731, rosemurraybrown.com.
But if one evening isn't enough to slake your curiosity (or thirst), the next step up is the cocktail weekend provided by London's Zeta Bar at the Park Lane Hilton. Their cocktail connoisseur package includes drinks on arrival, a Friday or Saturday night stay (with breakfast) and an early evening mixology masterclass.
· £225 per room (two sharing); masterclass also available separately for £30 each; 020 7208 4067, zeta-bar.com
Ready to try some of the throwing-bottles-over-your-head-and-catching-them stuff? 'We call that "flair",' explains Adam Freeth of Shaker, 'and it can be taught.' Inside Shaker's Birmingham office there's a fully functioning cocktail lounge bar; and, as well as offering two seperate full-day sessions, Cocktails For All and Flair-School, the five-day International Bartenders Course will teach you everything from 'freepour' to 'customer service'.
· From £100 a day, 0121-622 2055, shakers-uk.com
And for those who really want to know their mojitos from their margaritas, Glasgow-based Liquid Assets (0141-559 5901, liquid-assets.co.uk) is starting 10-week courses on Tuesday nights in the new year. 'We haven't finalised price or curriculum yet,' says Head Mixologist Barry Galloway, 'but we're hoping to get it recognised as an official NVQ.' It was Liquid Assets who ran the backstage cocktail bar at last month's MTV Europe awards, dishing up daiquiris to the likes of Kylie and Beyoncé. And not even Tom Cruise has done that.
· Ed Grenby
Way to go
Getting there: British Airways (0870 8509850, ba.com) flies Heathrow-New York's JFK airport 10 times a day from £302.20 (until December 18) £520.20 (December 19-24).
Good deals: Paint the Town campaign (nycvisit.com) runs until March 31 offering packages from $105pp for a night's accommodation, dinner and a Broadway show.
Further information:
Country code: 00 1.
Flight time: London-New York 7hrs.
Time difference: -5hrs.
£1= 1.68 dollars.
