American · Cocktail
Old Fashioned
Spirit, sugar, bitters, water. That was the original definition of the word cocktail, and this is that drink, unchanged since the 1800s. It lives or dies on the bourbon.
Photo: Dextar Studio ™ / Pexels
Takes 4mMakes 1 drinkGlass Rocks glass, one large cube
Ingredients
- 2 oz bourbon or rye whiskey
- 1 sugar cube, or 1 tsp simple syrup
- 2 to 3 dashes aromatic bitters
- 1 strip orange peel
- 1 large ice cube
Method
- Put the sugar cube in the glass and soak it with the bitters. Add a splash of water and crush it to a paste.
- Add the bourbon and one large ice cube.
- Stir for about thirty seconds. You are chilling it and adding a little water at the same time, and both matter.
- Squeeze the orange peel over the glass so the oil sprays across the surface, then drop it in.
The one thing that matters
One big cube, not a handful of small ones. Less surface area means it chills the drink without watering it down.