Elevate Your Old-Fashioned With These Simple Tweaks: ‘How I took my favourite at-home cocktail from okay to stellar’
An absolutely classic cocktail enjoyed by many influential figures—both in reality and in fiction—the old-fashioned has earned its sophisticated reputation over hundreds of years.
Old-fashioneds have a relatively basic list of ingredients, but if you’ve ever tried to make one, you know that this bourbon-forward cocktail is anything but simple. Whiskeys and bourbons have complex flavor profiles as it is, and getting the right consistency, texture, and balance is next to impossible.
But this is precisely what I find so enjoyable about the drink — there’s not really a wrong way to do it, so long as you loosely adhere to the primary components. And as a perfectionist that dabbles in functional alcoholism, it’s delightfully intriguing to never make the same one twice.
The Essential Ingredients of an Old-Fashioned
- Sugar
- Bitters
- Bourbon
- Citrus garnish
- Ice
I would consider myself an amateur at-home bartender, and I’ve been trying to perfect the old-fashioned for the last several years. I’ve learned a few bartender tricks from some of the best bars in the wonderful city of Atlanta, chatted up some fellow whiskey advocates, and played with a variety of different ingredients, all the while taking mental notes and reviewing my process by… well by drinking them.
I think I’ve finally settled on a fairly repeatable process and recipe that I’m quite proud of, and I’d like to share it in case it provides any sort of helpful insight.
My Old-Fashioned Recipe
- 2 dashes angostura bitters
- 2 dashes black walnut bitters
- 1 bar spoon of spiced demerara syrup
- 1 ounce rye
- 1 ounce bourbon
- 1 large ice rock
- Orange and lemon garnish
My Old-Fashioned Process
Begin by filling your chosen rocks glass to the brim with cubes of ice and set it in the freezer. You’re just chilling the glass while you concoct this bad boy, so regular cubes will suffice.
Next, add the demerara syrup, the bitters, and then the whiskey into the bottom of a mixer. Then pour the ice from your rocks glass into the mixer.
Add the large ice rock into your newly empty rocks glass, and put it back in the freezer — you still have some serious stirring to do.
Stir the mixture for at least 30 seconds, moving the spoon around the outside of the container. We just want to chill the drink, keeping the ice cubes whole.
After you’re done stirring, remove your glass from the freezer and strain the mixture into the rocks glass, pouring it gently over the large rock.
Lastly, remove an orange peel and a lemon peel with a potato peeler or fruit peeler of your choice. Express both peels over your drink, rub them around the rim, submerge them, and enjoy.
Tips for the Perfect Old-Fashioned
Do follow my instructions, because they are strategically worded and the ingredients are carefully chosen.
For example, I’ve found that angostura and black walnut bitters play off each other nicely. Additionally, the 1:1 ratio of straight bourbon and spicy rye provide the ideal flavor combination — not too sharp and not too sweet. And the demerara syrup is the secret sauce. Bartenders all over Atlanta swear by it and they aren’t wrong. It’s a darker simple syrup that emits notes of toffee and rounds out the spices of the bourbon and bitters.
A lot of people like to use a cherry, which I’m not against, but I’ve just found that this particular set of ingredients doesn’t need anymore sweetness. Plus, we’ve already added two fruits as the garnish and any more starts to become exorbitant.
Deviating from my recipe in any way will obviously change the end result. That’s not to say that yours will be wrong, but below, I’ll explain why I said what I said, and also provide some additional tips that I’ve learned along the way.
Find some affordable brands you like.
You don’t want to use the most expensive ingredients thinking that it will make your old-fashioned better. For instance, the best whiskeys are meant to be enjoyed exactly as they are bottled, but they would be overpowering in your standard old-fashioned. So find a nice whiskey, but nothing crazy. I like Elijah Craig for my old-fashioneds, both the bourbon and the rye.
For bitters, I typically go with Fee Brothers.
And for demerara syrup, I’ve grown fond of Cocktail & Sons.
Leave your whiskey out, but refrigerate your simple syrup.
Whiskey should be kept at room temperature — storing it in the cold will likely change the flavour. But definitely refrigerate your simple syrups. They can grow bacteria if left out too long, and sometimes there are ingredients in spiced demerara syrups that can ferment. I found this out the hard way and once was pretty delirious for about 24 hours because of some fermented syrup.
Add the syrup, bitters, whiskey, and ice — in that order.
Any experienced bartender will tell you that if you’re building a cocktail, you use the most expensive ingredient last, in case you mess up the recipe and have to start from scratch. Also, make sure to add the ice after. If you pour the ingredients over the ice, they will be partly absorbed by the ice and some of their flavours will wind up missing.
Use plenty of ice during the stirring phase.
Make sure you use plenty of ice when stirring; the idea is to chill the drink, not water it down. That’s why I use the rocks glass as a measurement. If I’m making one old-fashioned, I use one rocks glass full of ice. If I’m making two, I’ll use two. It’s an easy way to measure the amount of ice you’ll need and serves the dual purpose of chilling the glass(es). An ice-cold glass improves the aesthetic and preserves the finished flavor profile for as long as possible. By using this much ice when you stir, the ice keeps itself cold, whereas just a few cubes would surely liquify from the friction and movement of rigorous stirring.
Opt for a large ice rock and not regular ice.
Not only does a large, clear rock look beautiful surrounded by the amber colour of a perfectly balanced old-fashioned, it is recommended for a reason. A large rock will melt more slowly as you sip, and only slightly water down the drink as you go. An old-fashioned is meant to be slightly sweeter than a Manhattan, but they’re both basically martinis for whiskey and bourbon. Their goal as a cocktail is simply to take the sharp bite out of the liquor, without adding a bunch of extra nonsense. So, we just want the deliberately chosen ingredients to shine as much as possible.
Peel the citrus garnishes as thin as possible.
When cutting the garnishes, try to avoid taking a lot of pith. The pith is the white part inside of the skin of the fruit— some say it’s bitter, some say it’s tasteless, but I haven’t honestly been able to notice. But either way, you don’t need the pith and you want to avoid cutting into the actual orange or lemon, so aim thin. We don’t want juice, just the essential zest and oils. I use a swivel peeler to obtain my garnishes, but I’ve seen many bartenders use Y-Peelers and they work just as well.
That’s all I got — cheers, and happy drinking.
