Just because Matt Weiner has taken his Don Draper ball and gone home for the summer, doesn't mean you need to give up drinking like Duck Phillips. The Old Fashioned is a simple cocktail combining a base spirit with bitters, sugar, and usually some type of fruit or zest. Rumor has it it got its name from a salty patron who had grown tired of fancy cocktails and demanded something "old fashioned". More importantly, this anecdote confirms that animosity towards newfangled drinking ways is nothing new.
What I've done here is taken out the simple syrup and/or muddled oranges. Instead, imagine a maitre'd standing in front of a gueridon with your order of crepes suzette. What he might do (and they were all men when this went on so I am only slightly sexist) is take a sugar cube and rub it across the skin of orange. The white cube turning a pale orange as the intense citrus oils latched onto the sugar. Do the same thing here and you will get the effect of orange without all the cloying sweetness of orange juice. I like a high proof bourbon or rye, but don't get too fancy with your booze or some salty barfly might call you an insufferable whippersnapper.
An Old Fashioned
2 oz of bourbon or rye
1 demerara sugar cube
1 orange
2-3 dashes of bitters (your choice, Peychaud's, Angostura, or Orange)
Rub the sugar cube on all six sides across the flesh of the orange. You really want to scratch the hell out of it. Place sugar cube in mixing glass, add bitters, and muddle briefly. Add bourbon or rye and ice and stir about 63 rotations. Stain into a rocks glass with a few cubes of ice. Garnish with an orange peel.
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9 comments:
Nice ice cube, hipster.
Its a Frigidaire crescent shaped cube. Available on only the oldest freezer/fridge combos. Get with the program and ditch your high end Sub Zero Ice Maker and get with that hero.
I particularly like the ones at Twelve Mile Limit....only the skin is used, no juice at all....and that Col. Taylor Rye is some fine stuff
I messed up a batch of cherry orange marmalade and the resulting fruit/syrup makes a delicious faux-fashioned. I add orange bitters and seltzer so that I can enjoy 2 or 3 without falling on my face.
Here's my blog post on my delicious failure: http://blathering504.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/failures-in-marmalade-making/
Nice write up. Will definitely try your sugar cube / orange trick. I hate when I get old fashioneds that are filled with juice and pulp.
By the way, at both 12 Mile Limit and SoBou, I have been asked "do you want that old style or new style?" Apparently old style is close to what you have written up. Orange rind only. New style is with muddled orange slices and cherries.
Thanks, Buffalo Trace Guy; Got the idea while watching an old episode of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. It made perfect sense in theory and in practice.
The new style certainly seemed to be the way most old fashioneds were made in family member's homes growing up. A lot of simple syrup, cherries, and fat wedges of orange crammed into a glass with bourbon on top. Some times splash of club soda.
Stripped down it is a better drink.
Thank you for not calling it an "Old Fashion"
Not too complicated, and we can make. Expect success.
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