I don't do reviews on bars, but making an exception here. I found La Distillerie on Yelp. Several said it had the best Manhattans in la citè. I decided to try it out.
This particular location is in the Quartier Latin. I went in there and realized this is the place for "Les hipsters de Montréal". I sat at the bar and was greeted by the bartender who said "Ça va? How you doing?" He was from Toronto so no language barrier.
While the Manhattans were good, this place prides themselves on crafted cocktails. I was allowed to take the cocktail menu with me. Unlike a lot of places in the USA, this menu had the prices and alcohol level of each drink. Plus it had on the back cover the breakdown of each dollar spent there on salaries, product, taxes, other overhead and profit ($0.03 per $1). The menu is only in French, but their website has an English option.
Excellent place to start a fun night in Montréal.