The Celluloid Pantry: The Bronx and The Thin Man (1934)

Sara Kate Gillingham
Sara Kate Gillingham
Sara Kate is the founding editor of The Kitchn. She co-founded the site in 2005 and has since written three cookbooks. She is most recently the co-author of The Kitchn Cookbook, published in October 2014 by Clarkson Potter.
published Jan 24, 2006
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Introducing a new Guest Writer: Nora will be contributing pieces on food and drink in cinema. Her feature, “The Celluloid Pantry,” promises to feature off-beat films not typically known as food movies (“no Big Night, Babette’s Feast, super-recent or super-commercial”). Nora has an ever-growing collection of over 500 DVDs, so you can bet she won’t mess around. Welcome, Nora!

We all know the Manhattan – a bracing blend of whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters – but there’s a near-forgotten cocktail called the Bronx that’s worth the trip uptown.

In The Thin Man (1934), suave, dry-witted detective, Nick Charles (William Powell, far right), takes things into his own hands and shows the barmen the way to mix a drink: “The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you always shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.”

Bronx Cocktail
makes one

1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
1/2 oz. orange juice
1 oz. gin

Combine in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake, strain into a glass, and garnish with a slice of orange. Round up the usual suspects.

– Nora