About the Recipe
The Old Fashioned is dependably warming, sweet, and comforting. According to cocktail historian David Wondrich, the Old Fashioned is a direct descendant of the earliest known “true” cocktail, which in 1806 consisted of “a little water, a little sugar, a lot of liquor, and a couple splashes of bitters.” As with any drink tracing its roots back to the early 1900s, there's controversy around who and when it was first concocted, but we can be fairly sure that the addition of fruits like cherries and oranges — especially to garnish — is a more modern revision to the recipe. "The Old Fashioned, with its layered taste, is an open invitation for both the whiskey lover and the froufrou cocktail drinkers. It's frilly but disciplined," write Paul Harrington and Laura Moorhead in Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century.
Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon or rye whiskey
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
1/4 ounce rich simple syrup
1 orange twist, for garnish
Preparation
Step 1
In a mixing glass, stir together two ounces of bourbon, whiskey or rye, rich simple syrup, and Angostura bitters.
Step 2
Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube, and garnish with an orange peel and/or a maraschino cherry, if desired.