If you didn’t hit the exact right amount of sugar and dilution, you could end up with a drink that was too sweet, too dry, too astringent, too flabby, too strong, too weak. None of the judges were in favor of this method, at least in a bar setting, believing the use of simple syrup aided both speed and consistency of flavor.Ī common failing in the construction of many Old-Fashioneds, the panel believed, came down to precision. These were easily spotted by the loose grains of sugar left sitting at the bottom of the glass. “But if you could add one thing to this drink, I would say another kind of bitters.”Ī number of drinks called for a muddled sugar cube. ![]() When confronted with a drink that obviously used two or more bitters, the panel generally saw the wisdom in the choice. “I wouldn’t make an Old-Fashioned with something I wouldn’t sip neat,” said Simó. Marrero said she selects her twist, bitters and type of sugar “based on the whiskey I’m using.” Simó and Macy added that, because the drink so openly celebrates its chosen spirit, the whiskey should be of quality. The most experimentation came in the bitters department, where participants often opted for more than one brand, typically combining the classic Angostura with another type, usually orange bitters.Įach of these ingredient choices are highly important matters in the building of the drink, according to the panelists. Garnishes ranged from orange twist to lemon twist to a combination of both, known as “rabbit ears.” And aside from one formula which called for sorghum syrup, all the drinks were sweetened with some form of sugar, either raw or simple syrups of various richness. Though the bartenders were not instructed to stick to whiskey-the Old-Fashioned model can be, and often is, applied to nearly any spirit-everyone did. Contestants hewed closely to the time-tested model. Unlike previous tastings for other cocktails, there were few outliers among the submissions. Eryn Reece, head bartender at the newly opened Banzarbar, was behind the PUNCH bar. (You’ll still find the fruited rendition at rank-and-file taverns across America.) Joining us to blind-taste the 17 entries were Tom Macy, head bartender and partner at Clover Club in Brooklyn Lynnette Marrero, bar director of Llama Inn in Brooklyn and co-founder of the bartending competition Speed Rack and Joaquín Simó, owner of Pouring Ribbons in Manhattan. ![]() That this pared-down style remains the status quo at the nation’s better cocktail bars was borne out recently when PUNCH put out the call for Old-Fashioned recipes in order to determine the best specimen. ![]() Modern Old-Fashioneds are now anchored by a single large chunk of ice. Gone, too, were crowning spurts of soda water or soda pop and the crappy ice which typically sullied the drink. ![]() A simple orange twist, or lemon, or both, would do. They aimed to showcase the whiskey, be it bourbon or rye, not mask it. Such “garbage,” in the lingo of detractors, was either plopped into the drink whole or muddled at the bottom of the glass-or both. (The “Old-Fashioned” prefix, which came to be the drink’s common name, was attached in the late-19th century when barkeeps began messing around with the basic formula, leading hidebound drinkers to cry out for an Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail.)ĭispensed with, in this new era, was the fruit, usually an orange slice and cherry, which became a regular feature in the years after Prohibition’s repeal. With the help of old, pre-Prohibition drink manuals, they returned the Old-Fashioned to its origins, when it was called the Whiskey Cocktail, and was a simple compound of spirit, sugar, bitters and water. During the first decade of this century, ardent young bartenders took it upon themselves to crack the code of the cocktail, one of the oldest in the canon, and find out what had once made it so beloved. We can thank our friendly neighborhood mixologists for this happy reversal of fortune.
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