The sixth 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 get back to basics with the old school sour staple, the Whiskey Sour.
Recipe:
- 2 oz Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- 3/4 oz Lemon Juice
- 3/4 oz Simple Syrup
- 1/2 oz Egg White (optional)
- Garnish: 1 dash Angostura Bitters, orange slice and maraschino cherry
If adding the egg white, dry shake all the ingredients with no ice for about 15 seconds. Then add ice and shake again until chilled (15-20 seconds). Strain over a rocks glass with a large ice cube. Garnish with cherry, orange slice, and bitters.
Intro:
Prior to making this Whiskey Sour at home, the last time I had one was probably back in the early/mid 90s in my freshman year of college, made with below-bottom shelf whiskey and store-bought sour mix in a cheap plastic cup, drank in a beer-and-urine drenched dive bar that catered to underage drinkers…
This bar, man, it was out of hand. A rite of passage for countless students upon their arrival to the University, gifting them their first opportunity to drink real drinks in a real bar, and far earlier than legally they should be. My buddies and I heard the whispers about this place our initial week in the dorms, and immediately made the trek over to the rougher side of town to the nondescript lounge tucked away in an old motel, nervously showed our underage IDs to the doorman, received the cherished nod of approval, and scurried over to the bar to buy our first beers from a real live bartender.
If I recall, the way it worked at this bar was that it was 18 or over to enter, but there was no hand stamp or wrist band or anything to distinguish the of-aged from the under-aged, so once you were in, it was game-on for all ages. And we dumped every cent we had into that place for the first couple semesters until we were too old for it and needed to move on to the big kid bars that required a fake ID, and leave our beloved old bar for the next crop of newcomers.
Anyway, during our tenure there, we consumed a steady diet of bottled Bud Heavy, Kamikazee shots, and Whiskey Sours. The Bud Heavies and Kamikazees were obvious choices for neophyte drinker college kids, but I don’t know what made us order Whiskey Sours. I have to assume we saw a pretty girl or a cool looking older dude do it, and assumed that this was what one who had class would drink in a bar. And so we drank them too, but instead of drinking them with class, we drank them with slurred speech, barf breath, and booze-soaked baggy over-sized button-ups from the GAP.
Since we’re already ass-deep in the nostalgia rabbit hole, here’s one more for you: This bar also had a “deal” where you could order a half-yard of beer for like $8 (a fortune for us), and if you were able to drink the whole thing down without taking a pause or spilling it, you’d get it for free.
Being the over-confident keg-stand kid that I was, I accepted the challenge, and was able to gulp it all down without issue…except for a pesky couple drops that remained in the bulb at the bottom of the glass. Fuck, I was now eight bucks poorer and a drinking disgrace.
So, the next time that I traveled back home to visit my parents, I logged onto their AOL account since none of us had a computer at school yet, and searched for one of the first things I ever searched for on the internet: How to properly chug a yard of ale.*
Not porn. Not music. How to chug a yard of ale.
What were we talking about? Ah, yes, the Whiskey Sour!
The Whiskey Sour’s first reported appearance in print was in Jerry Thomas’s legendary 1862 Bartender’s Guide (or The Bon Vivant’s Companion), but a basic “sour” recipe (spirit, sour, sweet) has been around at least a century before that. Worth noting, according to Wikipedia, that there are also references to a Whiskey Sour back in the 1860s in a Wisconsin newspaper as well as a Peruvian newspaper, so as is the case with almost all the classic drinks, the history is not entirely clear. Oh well.
The Whiskey Sour recipe is quite similar to a Daiquiri, another sour, only you’re using a lemon instead of a lime and whiskey instead of rum. The pattern remains the same, though – spirit, sour, and sweet. And as noted above, you can also throw an egg in a Whiskey Sour, but that’s optional and unrelated to the classic “sour drink” part.
Also, be sure to mark your calendar for National Whiskey Sour Day, which is celebrated annually on August 25. Sorry to those of you who have conflicting plans on the 25th to celebrate National Banana Split Day. Also, shame on you for that.
Recipe Rationale
Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon: Buffalo Trace is pretty much my house bourbon for cocktails. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a whiskey nerd and don’t have strong knowledge or opinions on it, but I like Buffalo Trace and it’s a great bourbon for a good price.
Lemon Juice: As always, squeeze your own lemons for the juice. Store-bought concentrate juice will substantially reduce the quality of the drink.
Simple Syrup: I made a 1:1 sugar/water mix at home for this drink. Recipe below if you want it.
Egg White: Adding an egg white is optional, but worth the effort. It gives extra body to the drink and enhances the mouthfeel with a creamy, silky texture and a nice froth on top. Do be sure to “dry shake” all the ingredients first (mentioned in the recipe above) to mix the ingredients and aerate the egg before adding ice and shaking again.
Verdict:
“I liked it! But I did like the Daiquiri better!”
Sab
“I liked it, but for me it was just a little bit unbalanced, leaning slightly more towards sour than I’d expected. Not sure if that’s just me being more sensitive to lemon juice in a sour than lime juice. Or if the recipe would have been better with a bit more simple syrup. Or maybe it tasted the way it’s supposed to and is just simply not my top choice of cocktail. Nevertheless, it was miles better than the shit versions that I guzzled back in college and dribbled all over my ill-fitting Macy’s sweater vest.”
Bones
Simple Recipe for 1:1 Simple Syrup
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup granulated sugar
Add water and sugar to a sauce pan over medium heat. Simmer and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Allow it to cool to room temp and then move it to a bottle. Throw it in the fridge and it should last a few weeks.
* The key to chugging a yard of ale, by the way, is to slowly twist the yard glass as you drink. If you don’t, beer will get trapped in the bulb at the bottom or come splashing out of it all over your face. I used this newfound internet knowledge to successfully chug a yard of Pilsner Urquell, many years after my initial disastrous performance, at a late 90s beer fest and won a Pilsner Urquell shirt. Honor regained. Sweet shirt attained.
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