Old Fashioned Cocktail

bourbon

sugar cube

Angostura bitters

Orange peel twist

If you have a sugar cube, drop that in the glass with the bitters and mash it around to dissolve it. Then add the bourbon and stir.

Otherwise, combine the bourbon, syrup, and bitters in a glass. Stir.

Garnish with a twist of orange peel, never a maraschino cherry. That&#8217;s for chicks.

When I saw the sugar, orange peel, etc., I flash-backed to the January 2011 episode of Hilah Cooking on "<a href="https://hilahcooking.com/how-to-make-punch/" rel="nofollow">How to Make Punch</a>." Instead of simple syrup and squeezed orange peel, how about making an oleo saccharum (sweet oil)? Then, you'd pour in the whiskey (or the other way around), drop in the bitters and ice, and stir. 

Are there Old-Fashioned recipes using the method I suggest? It'd give me another use for my muddler. Oh, by the way, nice use of the appropriate "Old-Fashioned" glass.

I'm totally loving this series!  (Go figure.)

The Old-Fashioned is one of the absolute greatest classic cocktails ever. Yet it's the one that is, more often than not, totally screwed up by your average bartender. If you walk into a bar and see that they use soda guns, order a beer and then go home and make your Old-Fashioned yourself. You'll get a much better drink that way. And with this episode, there's no excuse for not knowing how to make one.

Muddling the orange peel along with the sugar cube or simple syrup*, makes for a much more interesting drink in my opinion. Some folks object to this, feeling that it injects bitterness and pulp from the orange peel. But I find that if you use a vegetable peeler and are careful to take only a very thin swath from the orange, there's next to no pith and therefore no issues with bitterness and pulp. Given the origin of the Old-Fashioned's name, one could say that a marked citrus component is a requirement. The original cocktail (first mentioned in 1806) was defined as containing 1) a base liquor 2) citrus juice 3) sugar and 4) bitters. So the original cocktails were the gin cocktail, the whiskey cocktail, etc. The Old-Fashioned is first mentioned in 1880, after a slew of new mixed drinks also called cocktails had been invented and people decided they wanted a cocktail made in the "old-fashioned way". So the Old-Fashioned really is the original whiskey cocktail.

But I try not to be a purist about anything (unless nobody else is being one and there's a marked need for some purism). The last old-fashioned I made was anything but traditional: muddle an orange peel in the simple syrup, add ice and bacon-infused bourbon and finally add two dashes of chocolate bitters. Don Draper might not approve, but orange, bacon, bourbon and chocolate go really well together.

* - I'm otherwise a big fan of agave nectar, but it just didn't taste right in any of the cocktails I've tried it in. It ought to have a symbiotic relationship with tequila, but I've never tried that combo.

I made this last night for my hunnie, complete with the agave nector and lemon bitters.  Althought, I think I may have poured a little more than 1.5 ounces whiskey...when my hunnie took his first sip his eyes went real wide.  Gotta keep him on his toes, I guess!

"Since we were making do in a “garage” we didn’t have sugar cubes, or even the simple syrup that some bartenders use. We used agave nectar."

Way late comment guy says:  I love the irony of this statement.

old fashioned cocktail

Servings: 1

Cost: $7.70 /serving

Author : Hilah Johnson

Ingredients

Instructions

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