After attending last night's Dueling Manhattans booze night at Jardinière—and after hearing several patrons worry about rye or bourbon selections, whether the cherries were brandied or maraschino—we wondered just where one could find the best Manhattan in town. We're already rabid fans of the White Manhattan at NOPA (which boasts white whiskey, Benedictine. bianco or blanc vermouth, and orange bitters), but we love the cheap ones found at most mid-level dive bars in downtown San Francisco. We'd like to anoint a singular sensation. Help us out, won't you?

In the comments, please give the names of venues in the city where you guzzle your favorite Manhattan. Several members of the SFist team will select the top 5 most popular digs. We'll then travel to said 5 boozy destinations to crown a winner.

According to Wikipedia, here's how the drink got its start:

A popular history suggests that the drink originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the early 1870s, where it was invented by Dr. Iain Marshall for a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston's mother) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. The success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, later prompting several people to request the drink by referring to the name of the club where it originated—"the Manhattan cocktail". However, Lady Randolph was in France at the time and pregnant, so the story is likely a fiction. The original "Manhattan cocktail" was a mix of "American Whiskey, Italian Vermouth and Angostura bitters".

However, there are prior references to various similar cocktail recipes called "Manhattan" and served in the Manhattan area. By one account it was invented in the 1860s by a bartender named Black at a bar on Broadway near Houston Street.

An early record of the cocktail can be found in William Schmidt's "The Flowing Bowl", published in 1891. In it, he details a drink containing 2 dashes of gum, 2 dashes of bitters, 1 dash of absinthe, 2/3 portion of whiskey and 1/3 portion of vermouth.
The same cocktail appears listed as a "Tennessee Cocktail" in Shake 'em Up! by V. Elliott and P. Strong...: "Two parts of whiskey, one part of Italian Vermouth and a dash of bitters poured over ice and stirred vigorously."