What it is and why we call it “Old Fashioned”

The name of the Old Fashioned cocktail is a textbook example of truth in labeling. We call it that because it was, indeed, the earliest form of American cocktail. 

During the pre-revolutionary and pre-refrigeration era, when whiskey and rum were coarse and often offensive to human senses, barkeepers had few tools at hand to make distilled spirits more palatable. They had water, of course. There was sugar—not the white, highly processed and granulated table sugar we know today, but raw, crudely refined sugar that came in “sugar loafs”—solid cones from which bits had to be snipped with special nippers. And there was an abundance of bitter patent medicines—a category of alcohol-based herbal compounds with a long history in European culture and alleged to have healthful benefits. We’ve since dropped most of that medicinal pretense and call them simply, “bitters.”

To make the “Old Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail” (eventually shortened to simply “Old Fashioned”), one placed a small hunk of that crude sugar in a glass, dripped some water and bitters on the sugar, then muddled it into a coarse paste before adding an ounce or two of whiskey or rum to the glass and stirring. That was the drink. If you were lucky, that bit of water was chilly enough to cool the drink a little. If you were rich, you may even have had ice harvested from some far-away lake.

Three centuries later, the Old Fashioned remains a very popular cocktail. It’s easy to make, and it makes hard liquor more delicious without watering it down excessively. It’s almost so un-interesting that in two years of Libation Lounge posting I’ve not yet featured it. 

Shame on me. I should have gotten here sooner.

There’s no reason your Old Fashioned has to be the same, inflexible whiskey/sugar/bitters/ice recipe every time. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. You don’t eat the same thing for dinner every night, do you? There are dozens and dozens of ways to switch up the Old Fashioned model, using blended Scotch, smoky Islay Scotch, rum, gin, brandy, or whatever you like as the base spirit.  

A tasty Old Fashioned riff to try

Here’s one I found recently in Sasha Petraske Regarding Cocktails, a wonderful anthology of recipes by the late iconic bartender’s widow and various bartenders who worked under his tutelage at the influential New York City bar Milk & Honey. It slips into the whiskey-led Old Fashioned category with the classic ratio of whiskey to sweetener and bitters, but uses small amounts of sweet vermouth and Cointreau for sweetness instead of a sugar or simple syrup. 

HOME ON THE RANGE
2 oz Bourbon of choice (I used Knob Creek 12 Year Bourbon)
¼ oz Cointreau
¼ oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Build the drink in a rocks glass, starting with the bitters and ending with the bourbon. Add one large clear ice cube (hat tip to Cristallino Premium Ice for what I’m using) and stir a few times. Garnish with twists of lemon and orange peel.  

Bonus pour!
“Splitting the base” of your Old Fashioned (i.e., using more than one spirit) can be delightful, too. The same October evening that I had my favorite Ramos Gin Fizz, I also had an American Trilogy, created back in the 20-oughts at Milk & Honey by Richard Boccato (one of Sasha Petraske’s strong right hands). American Trilogy uses one ounce each of Laird’s Bottled in Bond Apple Brandy and a 100 proof straight rye whiskey (Rittenhouse, for example, or McKenzie’s), and it is fantastic.

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