Bourbon or rye · around 1880, Louisville
Old Fashioned
Whiskey, sugar, bitters, ice. The Old Fashioned is the original form of the cocktail and the drink every bar can be measured by.
Ingredients
- 6 cl bourbon or rye whiskey
- 1 sugar cube or 1 bar spoon of sugar syrup
- 2 to 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
- a splash of water
Method
- Muddle the sugar with the bitters and a splash of water in the glass.
- Add the whiskey and one large ice cube.
- Stir until the drink is cold and slightly diluted, about thirty seconds.
- Squeeze an orange zest and drop it into the glass.
When the word cocktail was first defined in 1806, it meant exactly this: spirit, sugar, water, bitters. When bars started tipping all sorts into glasses around 1880, guests asked for the cocktail made the old fashioned way. The name stuck.
The Old Fashioned forgives nothing. Too much sugar, muddled oranges in the glass or small ice, and it is a sweet whiskey with water. In a good bar it is a slow drink for a long conversation.
Where to drink it
The bars for a perfect Old Fashioned.
Cocktail barDüsseldorf · Old town
Sir Walter
Calm and craft in the middle of the old town
Cocktail barMunich · Isarvorstadt
Bar Gabányi
Jazz, whisky, chessboard
Hotel barZurich · Old town
Widder Bar
More than a thousand whiskies and live jazz
Cocktail barCologne · Rathenauplatz
Shepheard
Classics in the half-dark
