Manhattan? Actually, It’s a “Boy Martini”

You can certainly get a Manhattan at the Brooklyn location of Ray’s, the kitschy bar that also has locations in Manhattan and Miami, but it’s not on the menu that way. Instead, you’ll find the combination of rye, sweet vermouth, and bitters in the Martini section—because at Ray’s, it’s not a Manhattan; it’s a “Boy Martini.”

In a skit posted by the bar in March, a customer orders a Manhattan. “You mean a Boy Martini?” the bartender responds, describing it as “like a Martini, but it has whiskey and it’s dark, so it’s for a boy, like you.” The video racked up over 3 million views on TikTok and Instagram, and was imitated by bars like Austin’s Revenge; Nashville’s The Amsterdamian; and Bristol, England’s Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Both the video and the drink are really a matter of savvy marketing, explains Dylan Wells, general manager of Ray’s Brooklyn. After taking stock of the best-selling items at the end of 2025, “it became very apparent to us that we were very much a Martini bar,” he says. Espresso Martinis and classic Martinis performed well; Pornstar Martinis were seeing an uptick. In January, “we started breaking out our best-selling Martini variants and putting them on our menu front and center.” With the Manhattan echoing some Martini qualities—strong, stirred, served up—it made sense to add to the menu, Wells recalls, and when someone suggested the name, “we thought that was kind of funny.”

There’s a level of engagement bait to it all, as proven by the spirited comments on the skit. Namely, the drink in the video is shaken, prompting plenty of horrified responses; the actual Boy Martini is, as it should be, stirred. “It doesn’t totally look like a Manhattan in the video,” Wells admits. 

Of course, the drink’s name also inspires existential debate. Is a Manhattan really a “Boy Martini,” especially when the Martini itself has been synonymous with hypermasculine figures like James Bond and Mad Men’s Roger Sterling for so long? This is the entertaining absurdity of the concept though, as is the case with rebranding assemblages of snacks as “girl dinner” or bowls of slop as “boy kibble.”  To apply gendered qualifiers to anything as generally appealing as meat and rice, or a classic cocktail, is to also underscore the pointlessness of the pursuit. In this way, the trend pokes fun at the concept of “girly drinks” versus “masculine” ones, and at the “lingering trope of the man’s glass,” as The New York Times put it in a 2023 piece about the gendering of glassware among some drinkers. 

If customers find the name silly, there’s little sense of that when they order, Wells says. “People are playing it straight,” he says. “They’re not embarrassed. They’re not really laughing. They’re just ordering a Boy Martini.” Is it even registering that it’s a Manhattan? He’s not sure. The point stands: Everyone wants to drink Martinis now.