Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Old Fashioned!

In which Hooper reacquaints himself with the classic. And rants about the hucksters in the bourbon business.

Even a nice simple Old Fashioned looks so pretty up close.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender, and welcome to the Labor Day weekend! Fall doesn’t *officially* start for a few weeks, and it’s searingly hot in Ohio. But there’s no reason not to start enjoying fall flavors. It might not be sweater weather, but it’s fine to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes if that’s your jam. And at the bar, it’s time to unabashedly enjoy a true American spirit — bourbon. Let’s do a deep dive into the Old Fashioned and talk through the ins and outs of this classic. Here’s the recipe:

Old Fashioned

2 ½ oz Bulleit Bourbon

½ oz simple syrup

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Add 1 large ice cube, syrup, and bitters to a double old fashioned glass, in that order, all ingredients poured over the ice cube. Pour bourbon over the ice. Stir 6-8 times with a bar spoon. Garnish with 2 Luxardo cherries and an orange twist. 

It’s a short and simple recipe. I like to add the ingredients in an order and method that maximizes the chill and dilution of the drink, but it’s hard to screw this one up. If I was making this behind the stick, I’d stir it with ice and flamboyantly pour it into a chilled glass, but building an Old Fashioned in the glass at home is more than good enough. 

Please regard this recipe as a template, not a finished product. Any flavor of syrup or bitters is fine. Ultimately, a good Old Fashioned is similar to a good steak. You can add a little flair to it here and there. But at the end of the day, a wise chef will simply salt, pepper, and sear a quality meat, put it on the plate, and let the beef speak for itself. The quality of the bourbon is what matters. Everything else is there to make the bourbon stay true to its nature. 

I’ve haven’t been a fan of bourbon for a while, but that comes more from the culture that’s grown up around bourbon than the spirit itself. The demand for certain brands and bottles is way out of proportion to their actual quality. Blanton’s is a prime example. It’s an excellent bourbon, well-made and very tasty, but it is not worth what resellers and secondary markets will charge for specific bottles of bourbon. To be more specific, the corks of the bottles. Each cork has one letter of the name “BLANTONS” stamped on it, with a jockey in a different pose. A full set of eight corks sells for $75, if you can find it in stock. That’s roughly the price of an actual bottle of this nectar. 

I could rant for a very long time about resellers and secondary markets and scalpers and counterfeiters. The nonsense does make for some stellar bar stories. But at the end of the day, it comes down to this: There are only two kinds of bourbon — good bourbon and bad bourbon.

Bad bourbon tries to cheat. It rushes to market as soon as the requisite aging period is up. It tries to pump the flavor by adding wood staves to the barrel (looking at you, Maker’s Mark) or sticking a big splinter of oak into the barrel (Oak and Eden, you ain’t fooling anyone). Maybe it tries to “innovate” and age the mash in stainless steel barrels with oak splinters under pressure for six months instead of waiting two years (nice try, Cleveland Whiskey). Don’t get me started on Mellow Corn, Benchmark 8, Middle West White Rye … the list of hucksters selling snake oil in bourbon bottles is enough to drive anyone to drink.

Good bourbon plays by the rules. Bourbon has some very particular standards — it must be 51 percent corn, American-made, and aged in charred oak barrels for no less than two years. Good bourbon respects the spirit of those rules. Bulleit and Larceny are two great brands that are good bourbon, with no frills or surprises. You can make a great Old Fashioned with either of them. 

So let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. This is all you need for a perfect fall evening.

Bulleit Bourbon: I’ve been avoiding the bitter truth in this article — Brown Forman, the maker of Jack Daniels, ended its diversity programs this month. It’s particularly galling considering the history of Jack Daniels and Nathan “Nearest” Green, the African-American master distiller who taught Jack Daniels the secret of making quality whiskey. Brown Forman makes Old Forester and Woodford Reserve, some of my favorite bourbons. The news stings, but I can’t buy those bottles in good faith anymore. Bulleit is good, but sort of middle of the road. It’s been my “rail whiskey” in many quality bars I’ve worked in. I’m hunting for new bottles to fall in love with. I’ll let you know what I find. 

Simple Syrup: Real talk: I never actually use simple syrup in my Old Fashioneds. There are so many flavorful sweeteners you can use instead. Maple syrup, Luxardo cherry syrup, and brown sugar syrup all immediately come to mind. Play here. Find something that makes your bourbon perfect for you. No one will judge. 

Angostura bitters: I love me some Ango, but this is another place for innovation. Old Forester made an entire line of bitters designed with bourbon in mind; sadly, those are off the table for me for now. I’m going to remake my favorite “Bohemian Bitters” from scratch in the weeks to come; watch this space. I refuse to let the bastards take good things away from us. 

Garnishes: Luxardo cherries never photograph well, but they are so very tasty. A smart bartender will replace the simple syrup with a little splash of cherry syrup from the jar of Luxardos. They’re pricey and worth every penny. The orange twist can help a sometimes-heavy cocktail feel bright and crisp. Don’t skip it. 

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!  

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