The four components of a true Old Fashioned have remained the same: A base spirit, usually whiskey water, in the form of ice melt sugar, whether granulated or as simple syrup and bitters. “That name was eventually shortened to Old-Fashioned.” “When bartenders in the 1870s and 1880s began adding embellishments to their Whiskey Cocktails, some customers rebelled against the innovations,” preferring the traditional version and thus ordering “old-fashioned whiskey cocktails” instead. “The Old-Fashioned was an evolution of the Whiskey Cocktail, which was simply whiskey, sugar, bitters, and water, and was served as early as 1800 or so,” explains cocktail authority Robert Simonson, author of The Old-Fashioned: The Story of the World’s First Classic Cocktail, with Recipes and Lore. (It didn’t get that name otherwise.) But the cocktail dates back far enough that it was considered an “old-fashioned” drink even in its pre-Prohibition heyday. The Old Fashioned, of course, has a great deal of history.

And in the midst of an American whiskey boom, perhaps it’s no surprise that one of our era’s favorite cocktails is one that shows off whiskey so well. Many mixologists consider the Old Fashioned a good measure of a bartender’s chops how you make the cocktail says a great deal about your approach to bartending, your attention to detail, and comfort with the classics. All of the traditional ingredients - whiskey, sugar, a healthy serving of bitters - are as Slater describes, “working together in total harmony.” “It’s the perfect example of the saying ‘Less is more,’” says Aubrey Slater, bartender at Honeybee’s in New York. Whether you’re at an elaborate cocktail bar or the most humble tavern, there’s likely to be someone sipping on the classic.Īnd while the Old Fashioned is a crowd-pleasing favorite, modern-day mixologists adore the drink as well. But no single drink has fully reentered the popular imagination quite like the Old Fashioned. The craft cocktail boom of the last decade has brought back into fashion any number of classics, from the Aviation to the Manhattan.

Back number old fashion