The Old Fashioned is most definitely an oldie and a goodie. If you haven’t yet savoured the revival of this early 1800s conception, you best get on the bandwagon and tick this classic off your tongues list. More on the origins of the Old Fashioned a little later.
If you are to master the art of this particularly quick whiskey cocktail as it was done back in the 1800s, you’ll try and reach the right balancing of bitter and sweet (so try to measure accurately).
To keep as close to the original brew what you’ll need is…
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon superfine white sugar (or 1 white sugar cube).
2 dashes Angostura Bitters.
1 teaspoon club soda/soda water or water.
2 ounces Rye Whiskey.
1 extra large ice cube. If you haven’t yet invested in an oversized rubber ice cube mould or ice sphere, 2-3 small ice cube should do it.
Orange twist for garnish.
Method:
Measure the 1 teaspoon of superfine sugar (or 1 sugar cube) into a chilled mixing glass or shaker and add 2 dashes Angostura Bitters. Begin to muddle together along with adding 1 teaspoon of club soda until sugar is dissolved and forms a nice paste-like consistency.
Add your Rye Whiskey of choice and fill with ice (either your single large ice cube or several single cubes).
A well-balanced Old Fashioned is best stirred for 20-30 seconds in your mixing vessel, then strained over fresh ice into your drinking glass. From an appropriate sipping server use a thick heavy bottom glass.
Add orange peel garnish by twisting, then rubbing the rim of the glass with the peel and dropping it into your cocktail.
Ready to savour.
Enjoy and stay dapper.
Robbie – Dapper Lounge
BEHIND THE BEVERAGE
The earliest documentation of this recipe dates back to a guesstimated 1806 through the shear questioning of the word ‘cocktail’ itself. According to some readings, the word ‘cocktail’ was raised and questioned by a reader of the Hudson New York newspaper in 1806, who wrote to question of what the word ‘cocktail’ may mean. With a response by the editor reportedly reading that ‘a cocktail was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water and sugar, or a bitter sling’. Would this mean cocktails were invented and defined in the U.S?
Jared Brown from The Telegraph UK reported, “the earliest-known use of the word “cocktail” in print that referenced drink was from 1806 in an upstate New York newspaper. Then, in 2005, it was discovered in a Vermont newspaper from 1803. In 2010 we found the word used in the March 20, 1798, edition of The Morning Post and Gazetteer, a long-defunct London newspaper. The paper had reported on March 16 that the landlord of the Axe & Gate tavern at the corner of Downing and Whitehall, on winning a share of a lottery, returned to his establishment and erased his regulars’ tabs with a mop “in a transport of joy”. Four days later the paper ran a satirical article listing who owed for what drinks in the heart of British politics. A certain Mr Rose (while writing letters upon the reform of public offices) owed for “gin and bitters”. Another owed for 35 nips of “glue”, “commonly called Burton ale, to make the members of the neutrality stick together”.
Toward the bottom, William Pitt the younger owed for “L’huile de Venus”, “parfait [sic] amour”, and a less French drink: “‘cock-tail’ (vulgarly called ginger).”
Exactly what this implied is open to conjecture. The most common use of the term “cocktail” at the time was in reference to a horse with its tail cut short to indicate it was of mixed breed. One colic remedy found in veterinary manuals from the period blended water, oats, gin and ginger.
America stakes its claim to the cocktail’s surge in popularity in part through the work of Jerry Thomas, a Connecticut native who in 1862 wrote the first book to contain a section of cocktail recipes. Historians have gone so far as to call the American the father of modern bartending, but he actually worked in London prior to penning this pioneering tome.
Meanwhile, as the States grew prosperous, the number of American tourists visiting London swelled. The few “American Bars” that had cropped up were seeing enough business to spawn a trend in cocktail joints. The young British barkeepers working in them quickly grasped the air of creativity and birthed countless new drinks. Many of these found their way to the States, only to be introduced to Europe a few years later as genuine American drinks.”
(These very historic and insightful words by Jared Brown, December 13, 2012, The Telegraph UK).
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