Stir all ingredients with ice for 30 seconds. Strain into a rocks glass over a fresh large cube. Express lemon peel and drop in.
Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, 1937. Walter Bergeron, head bartender. Named for the French Quarter ("Old Square"). The NOLA cousin of the Manhattan.
Rocks glass, single big cube. The cocktail is spirit-forward and rich — a sipper.
Complex, layered, simultaneously sweet, herbal, and spirit-warm. The Bénédictine is the signature — without it, this is just a Manhattan variant.