This is my favorite cocktail. Anywhere.

Until A16, the Italian restaurant, opened this summer in Napa, if someone ever mentioned “five boroughs,” I visualized the five boroughs of New York City — Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Bartender Zack Kusch

But now, having dined ten times at A16, and having been thrilled each time by the food and service, I have a new take on “5 Boroughs.”

It’s the name of a cocktail on the spirits menu at A16 and just happens to be the best cocktail made in Napa Valley. Maybe anywhere.

“5 Boroughs,” a riff on a conventional Manhattan cocktail, is the creation of bartender Zack Kusch.

The joy of Zack’s 5 Boroughs cocktail cannot be overstated.

Your first sip does to your palate what the opening of Kubrick’s “2001 Space Odyssey” does to your ears. You know, that star-reaching, crescendo, originally composed by Richard Strauss, recorded for the film by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The film’s opening music… that’s exactly what Zack’s 5 Boroughs cocktail does to me. I get that same goosebump-making, connection to our universal ethereal plasma… the drink brings me ecstatic J-O-Y!

Zack, above, 40, says that the idea for this cocktail started while he was bartending at Rustic Canyon, in Los Angeles.

He and his wife moved to Napa Valley during the covid pandemic, and he has bartended in many places since, including Goose & Gander, in St. Helena, as well as Torc and Slanted Door in Napa. He says that in all this time, he never gave up on the cocktail that he’d created way back when.

“5 Boroughs developed organically. We had a bottle of St. Agrestis, an amaro from Brooklyn, and I wanted to make a whisky cocktail that was inspired by Manhattans — but using this amaro.”

Zack continues: “I also wanted to make an improved Manhattan, at least for me. I wanted to create a cocktail with better balance, and smoother finish. No disrespect to the Manhattan cocktail, it’s timeless and iconic, but the luxury of bartending is taking a cocktail and shaping it into something you enjoy more.”

Zack says that his 5 Boroughs is an homage to every borough in New York, each of which has its own variation of Manhattan. There’s a cocktail called The Brooklyn, there’s one called Carrol Garden, one called the Bronx, each based on the Manhattan with different liqueurs and bitters used.

“To be honest, I also had just listened to the album “Through the Five Boroughs,” by the Beastie Boys, and the name stuck!”

The A16 5 Boroughs cocktail

1 oz Rittenhouse rye whisky (100 proof)

¾ oz Averna amaro

½ oz Cocchi vermouth di Torino

Barspoon of Luxardo maraschino liqueur

5 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass, stir 15 to 20 seconds, strain into a Martini coupe, or over ice in an old-fashioned whisky glass. Garnish with an expressed orange peel.

The ingredients to make 5 Boroughs…

I agree with Zack, who says that he prefers to use rye in his whisky cocktails, rather than Bourbon, which he finds too sweet for this concoction.

“I like Rittenhouse rye, in particular, says Zack, “because it’s less sweet and spicier than Bourbon. Also, it’s 100-proof and the extra proof — many ryes are bottled at 80-proof — makes the beverage taste bold and alive.”

Zack’s 5 Boroughs, made two ways — straight up or on the rocks….

History of the Manhattan

As 5 Boroughs is a riff on the Manhattan, let’s look at the origin of the cocktail.

A popular story, but one that has been debunked, says that the cocktail originated at the Manhattan Club, in New York, in the mid-1870s, reputedly invented by a bartender at a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (a.k.a Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden.

It’s argued that the success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, prompting people to request the drink by referring to the name of the club where it originated—”the Manhattan cocktail.”

But fact-checking cancels this version of the Manhattan Origin Story as Lady Randolph was in France at the time and, oh, by the way, was pregnant, so the story is totally fictive.

It tuns out that there are numerous earlier references to the Manhattan, most of them anchoring the cocktail to one of several bars in the late 1800s — where else? — in Manhattan.

First we take Manhattan, Then we take Berlin

If you are old enough to drink a Manhattan publicly, then you may be old enough to remember the lauded Canadian writer, poet and songwriter, Leonard Cohen, who thrilled a generation with his talents.

He wrote the song, “First we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin,” which Jennifer Warnes recorded and brought to fame.

Asked about the lyrics and storyline of his burning, sultry, gospel-ish song, Cohen said that it was to honor ‘terrorists,’ by whom he meant people who shook up society with their brains, not their guns. Cohen said he was talking about ‘terrorists like Jesus, Freud, Marx and Einstein.’ He noted that “from these ‘terrorists,’ the whole world is still quaking.”

What’s this got to do with Zack’s Manhattan-inspired 5 Boroughs?

Only this: For years, whenever I heard the Jennifer Warnes’ version, or Cohen’s version, of the song on the radio, I would sing along, substituting my words for the beguiling lyrics that Cohen penned:

“First we have Manhattans, that’s where it all Begins!”

Next time you hear the song, sing-along with the bouncing ball…. and insert my lyrics!

This (below) is the bright interior of A16 Napa … but you will NEVER see it empty like this. I just happened to interview Zack mid-afternoon on a day when there was no lunch service. At dinner, there are NO empty seats and no empty bar stools

While we’re at it, let’s talk about A16’s food.

The trick to experience their best pizza is to order their white-sauced, sausage pizza, which is listed on the menu, and tell your server you want the napaman version, substituting red sauce for the white topping. They charge $2 more for the red version, but it’s worth the upcharge.

The acid and draw from the red sauce make all the ingredients in the sausage pizza — fennel sausage, Jimmy Nardello peppers, caciocavallo and Grana Padano cheese — sing out loud, and in harmony. Much better than the conventional, menu’d, white-topped, sausage pizza.

The pizza dough here, on occasion, has been under-proofed, making the dough a bit chewy, but when it is proofed properly and baked to perfection, THIS is a sensational pizza.

Of the pastas, we love the Cavatelli, tossed with braised oxtail, which is umami-fied with Grana Padana and oregano.

We’ve also been thrilled by the Maccaronara pasta, noddles tossed with a hearty Neapolitan ragu, accented with ricotta salata, tweaked with basil.

In this age of promotional shenanigans — people taking inside money for product placement — I need to be clear about my relationship with Shelley Lindgren, owner of several A16 restaurants in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

In 2006, as then co-owner of Charter Oak Winery, in St. Helena, (I partnered with my friend, Rob Fanucci, whose grandparents had started the winery) I drove to San Francisco to present Shelley with our voluptuous Charter Oak Zinfandel. Even though she specialized in exotic, unusual wines mostly from southern Italy, she was so kind to us, and put our Zin on her menu to complement her sensual food. Shelley even followed up, ordering more after she sold through her first order.

So, thank you Shelley, for your wine orders 20 years ago (!) and more recently, for joining with Napa resident, Kitty Oestlien, to bring A16 to Napa.

And thank you Zack, for bringing the best cocktail to Napa Valley!

A16, 821 Coombs Street, Napa, CA 94559
707-883-3696