The Old Fashioned: Why It's Having a Moment
2024-11-20 · 5 min read
The Old Fashioned is the oldest cocktail in the book, literally. It dates to the early 1800s and is essentially the definition of what a cocktail is: spirit, sugar, bitters, water. Every other cocktail is a variation on this formula. And after decades of being associated with your grandfather's liquor cabinet, it has become the most ordered whiskey cocktail in the world again.
Don Draper deserves some credit. Mad Men did not invent the Old Fashioned revival, but it accelerated it dramatically. Watching Jon Hamm order one made the drink aspirational for a generation of men who previously thought cocktails meant Long Island Iced Teas. The show coincided with the broader craft cocktail movement, and the Old Fashioned became its gateway drink.
The standard recipe is two ounces of bourbon or rye, a quarter ounce of simple syrup or a sugar cube, two dashes of Angostura bitters, and an orange peel expressed over the top. Stirred with a large ice cube in a rocks glass. The key is the dilution from stirring, which opens up the whiskey's flavors without drowning them. Under-stir and it is too boozy. Over-stir and it is watery.
The variation game has gone wild. Bars now offer mezcal Old Fashioneds, rum Old Fashioneds, and even tequila Old Fashioneds. Bitters brands like Bittercube and Scrappy's offer dozens of flavors that let you customize the drink endlessly. Smoked Old Fashioneds, where the glass is filled with applewood smoke before building the drink, became a whole trend.
What keeps the Old Fashioned relevant is its fundamental soundness. The ratio of spirit to sweetener to bitters is the template upon which mixology is built. You can teach the entire history and philosophy of cocktails through this single drink. It was the first cocktail, it survived Prohibition, it outlasted the cocktail dark ages, and it will outlast whatever comes next.
