Old Fashioned, Classic

⭐ This is my house Old Fashioned — the same drink as my smoked one, without the smoke. Spirit, sugar, water, bitters. That is the whole definition of the word cocktail, printed in a New York newspaper in 1806, and this drink is the only survivor of it.

I am a snob about three things here and I make no apology for any of them. The syrup is homemade — four minutes of sugar and water, never the bottled stuff. The cherry is a real cocktail cherry — Luxardo, Maraska or Fabbri — and never a bright red maraschino. The bitters go in at six dashes, not two, which is above the usual spec on purpose: at that dose they stop being seasoning and start being structure, and the drink will carry its sugar without ever tasting sweet.

The fourth thing is the ice. One large clear cube, and let it do its work.

Ingredients

• 2 oz bourbon (see notes)
• 1/3 oz Simple Syrup — ALWAYS homemade
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• 3 dashes orange bitters
• 1 wide strip orange peel
• 1 wide strip lemon peel
• 1 real cocktail cherry — Luxardo, Maraska or Fabbri
• 1 large clear ice cube

Directions

1. Put the bitters and the syrup in the glass first and stir them together. They are the two smallest volumes and the two most likely to end up unmixed at the bottom.
2. Add the bourbon. Stir a couple of turns to combine.
3. Add one large clear cube and stir 20–30 seconds. This is the only step with a variable outcome — it is not optional, and it is where most home Old Fashioneds go wrong. A properly stirred drink picks up 20–25% of its volume in water. A 2 oz pour ends up around 2.5 oz in the glass.
4. Taste it now, before the garnish. Once the orange oil is on the surface the nose changes enough that judging the sugar gets harder.
5. Cut a wide strip of orange peel with as little white pith as you can. Hold it skin-side down a couple of inches above the drink and pinch it sharply in half — you will see the oil spray across the surface. Wipe it round the rim, drop it in.
6. Same with the lemon peel. The orange makes it round; the lemon brightens it.
7. Cherry last, so it is sitting where you can see it and eat it at the end.
8. Do not stir again.

Notes

The bourbon. My first rank is Angel’s Envy, Four Roses Small Batch and Heaven’s Door. Next after that: Elijah Craig, Larceny, Old Forester 1870 and Knob Creek.

If you are buying one bottle for this drink, buy something at 100 proof — a bottled-in-bond bourbon is the best value on the American whiskey shelf and it is a cocktail bargain specifically. In a drink that is about to add sugar, water and bitters, that guaranteed 100 proof is worth more than almost anything else you could pay for.

Re-balance when the bottle changes. Angel’s Envy is 86.6 proof and gets washed out if you over-dilute it — big cube, short stir. Larceny is wheated and already doing part of the sugar’s job — cut the syrup. Knob Creek at 100 proof can take more of everything.

Diagnosing a bad one: tastes sweet → too much syrup or not enough bitters (check the bitters first). Harsh and closed → under-diluted, stir longer. Thin → over-diluted or your ice is too small. Grainy sludge at the bottom → somebody used a sugar cube and stopped muddling before it dissolved.

No bitters means it is not a cocktail. By the 1806 definition, whiskey with sugar and water and no bitters is a sling. That is the one place I am completely inflexible.

The long version — history, the bourbons, the cherries, the ice, the smoke — is in the Old Fashioned deep dive at brewing.fubsypoly.com/mixed-drinks/old-fashioned/.