Making Classic Cocktails at Home #8: Old Fashioned

The eighth entry in the series where my wife Sabrina and I journey through the wide wonderful world of classic cocktails by crafting and drinking recipes together at our home bar. Today let’s visit the godfather of whiskey-based cocktails, the legendary Old Fashioned. 

---

Recipe:

• 2 oz Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon
• 1/2 tsp Granulated sugar
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• Garnish: Orange Peel, Maraschino cherry

Muddle the sugar and bitters in an Old Fashioned glass. Add the bourbon and a single large ice cube. Stir until chilled, allowing for a small amount of dilution from the ice. Express an orange peel over the drink, rub it along the rim, and drop it in. Throw in a maraschino cherry if you got one.

---

Intro:

Everyone loves an Old Fashioned, don’t they? The drink is such a cocktail staple that it has its own glass named after it. I love the drink myself, and when I first started making the occasional cocktail at home, this one was at the top of my very small list of frequently-mades because for me it was tasty, booze-forward, and most importantly, a simple recipe that is easy and quick to throw together.  

I always felt like my Old Fashioneds were a bit too sweet, though, which I’m pretty sure is not a fault of the drink itself, but rather that I treated it as, well, “a simple recipe that is easy and quick to throw together.”  

Sure the recipe may be simple, but it is indeed a drink that requires… no, deserves…  your utmost love and care in its preparation. 

The key, as I’ve learned, is to take it seriously and pay attention to the minor details: The way the whiskey remains the prominent player, its bite softened just slightly by the sugar. The way the bitters add a small but critical “depth” while tying the booziness and the sweetness together, and also providing a necessary balance with the sugar to keep the drink from becoming cloying. The very subtle aroma of citrus that buzzes around the surface of the drink from the orange peel expressed over it. Building the drink directly in the glass and stirring deliberately to get just the right amount of dilution. Etc etc

These are all the things I did not consider when I used to make my Old Fashioneds. I’d just fumble around in the liquor cabinet for some whiskey, dump it in a glass with some ice and simple syrup, splash it with Angostura, and start drinking. The difference with what I’m doing in my latest stab at an Old Fashioned is not so much a major change in recipe, but in how I implement the recipe. I build the drink with precision, giving each step its due respect, from expressing the orange peel twist to stirring with a goal, and the outcome is significant. An Old Fashioned made with intention beats the shit out one made without.  

The origin story of the Old Fashioned follows a different arc than a lot of the classics that have a debated history as to who first crafted the drink, who first named it after himself, etc. The Old Fashioned wasn’t explicitly named, but rather just evolved into its name. It started out as a “Whiskey Cocktail,” and in a short time spawned many offshoots from its original recipe. Folks who wanted to stick with the old tried-and-true and not one of the hipper newer versions would ask for an “Old Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail,” and eventually, just an “Old Fashioned.” 

And our beloved drink was born. Or rather, made official, being first published as an “Old Fashioned” in Theodore Proulx’s 1888 “The Bartender’s Manual.” I, for one, am grateful to Mr. Proulx for not naming it after himself, because how the hell do you pronounce “Proulx?”

Recipe Rationale:

Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon:  As I’ve mentioned before, Buffalo Trace is my de facto bourbon at the house. It’s a hell of a whiskey for its price point and has plenty of body to be the main character in this drink, without being so fancy that you get scolded by your whiskey aficionado buddy for putting it in a cocktail. There’s certainly others that would work just as well or better, depending on your palette. The Death & Co. folks (whom I reference a lot since I’ve been reading their books lately) use Elijah Craig Small Batch.

I should acknowledge that, were I truly attempting to align with tradition, I probably should have used rye whiskey instead of bourbon. That was the original base spirit for an Old Fashioned back in its early days, but was later replaced by bourbon as rye’s popularity declined.  

Granulated Sugar:  I considered swapping out basic sugar with some simple syrup that I’d recently made for another cocktail, but since the “traditional” recipe, as well as a lot of recipes online, calls for muddling straight sugar with the bitters, I figured I’d stick with tradition. Plus, I have a badass wooden muddler that I’m always looking for an opportunity to use. 

Angostura Bitters:  Angostura is the quintessential aromatic bitter from Trinidad. Best to always have a bottle on hand, as it’s a key ingredient in countless cocktails. I’ve seen Old Fashioned recipes that augment this with other types of bitters to personalize the drink, but I stuck with the basics for my recipe. 

Ice:  Ice is critical to the cocktail, not just for keeping it cold, but to reach an optimal dilution while stirring. I just used a single medium/large sphere from one of many random ice molds in my freezer that I’ve amassed over the years. It worked just fine.  

Online you’ll find many recipes that also include a small amount of water (like a teaspoon) as one of the ingredients, but I found the dilution from stirring alone to be plenty. To each their own, I guess. I again point you to the Death & Co. folks and their book Cocktail Codex if you want to get a thorough deep dive into ice, stirring, and dilution.

Verdict:

---

---