🥃 Whiskey Cocktail
Old Fashioned
The oldest cocktail in the book and still the benchmark. Everything else is just trying to beat it. Made right, it's bourbon at its most refined — sugar and bitters in perfect balance, nothing hidden.
🧪 Ingredients
- 60ml bourbon (Buffalo Trace or Woodford Reserve)
- 1 tsp demerara sugar syrup (or 1 sugar cube)
- 2 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1 dash orange bitters (optional but recommended)
- 1 strip orange peel, for garnish
- 1 large ice cube
📋 Method
- Add sugar syrup and both bitters to a mixing glass.
- Add bourbon. Fill with ice.
- Stir for 30–40 seconds — cold, diluted, and perfectly integrated.
- Strain over a single large ice cube in a rocks glass.
- Express an orange peel over the glass (twist over the surface to release oils), rub around the rim, drop in.
Bartender's Notes
The large ice cube is not decoration — it melts slower and dilutes less. Use demerara syrup rather than white sugar; it adds depth. Do not muddle fruit in an Old Fashioned. That's a different drink. Bourbon over rye here — rye gives a spicier result, which works, but bourbon is the classic.