How to Make a Harvard Cocktail, a Manhattan With Cognac Instead of Rye

Of all the Manhattan’s children—and there are many—the Harvard Cocktail is perhaps the most bizarre.

Most of them involve simple substitutions: Cut the sweetness in half and replace it with something. The Little Italy has Cynar. The Fort Point has Bénédictine. The Brooklyn cuts the sweetness almost entirely and replaces it with two things, Maraschino and Amer Picon. Sometimes you mess with the base spirit (as in, say the Vieux Carre or the Rob Roy, half Cognac…