100 Best Old Fashioned Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Do you shake or stir Old Fashioned? ›

DO NOT shake an Old Fashioned, always stir it. This has nothing to do with temperature but everything to do with texture. Shaking it will add air and water, diluting the co*cktail too quickly. Since the drink is primarily spirit, all you have to do is gently stir with ice, allowing for a smooth, velvety texture.

Angostura is an aromatic bitters, but lean heavily toward cloves and dried cherries. I crafted our Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters (the name kind of says it all) to be what I thought were the perfect bitters for an Old Fashioned. Ours lean more on cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg with only a touch of cloves.

An Old Fashioned calls for two to three dashes of bitters—no more, no less—that are added to the glass once the sugar or simple syrup is in. While the amount seems small, having too many or too few dashes can dramatically change the taste makeup of the drink.

Consequently, some traditionalists insist an Old-Fashioned should be made with rye, but bourbon is equally correct and the choice of whiskey should be entirely up to the personal taste of the drinker. Bourbon makes a mellow, slightly sweeter drink, while rye adds more spice and kick.

Chocolate or walnut bitters work well in this drink if you can find them. I also like Dale DeGroff's pimento bitters. Technique: The most balanced Old Fashioned is made by stirring the drink with ice for about 20 to 30 seconds and then straining that mix over fresh ice. Garnish: Orange twist, lemon twist, or both.

Use Rich Simple Syrup

The sugar cube is one Old Fashioned tradition that can definitely be skipped. While many recipes call for it, it offers no advantage over using a rich simple syrup and has several disadvantages. Most obviously, you have to find and buy sugar cubes and a muddler.

The old fashioned is a classic co*cktail that was invented in Louisville, KY. You can make it with bourbon, rye, or a blended whiskey. You can also substitute one sugar cube for the simple syrup.

With countless riffs, the Old Fashioned is entirely customizable to your palate. However, at its core, the Old Fashioned is just bourbon or rye whiskey, a sugar cube, bitters and a lemon or orange peel for garnish.

Some bartenders drop in a slice of orange or a cherry right before serving, and others will muddle the fruit into the drink; sometimes it's served with no fruit at all.

As mentioned earlier, the Old Fashioned is commonly made with either lemon or orange garnish. It's not uncommon now for folks to add a Maraschino cherry, though some feel very strongly that “fruit” does not belong in an old fashioned.

What whiskey goes best in Old Fashioned? ›

Best Overall Bourbon for an Old Fashioned: Old Grand Dad 114

Old Grand Dad 114 earns our distinction of the best bourbon for old fashioned. Orange zest, cinnamon, and burnt sugar are the signature tasting notes of Old Grand Dad 114 Proof .

We use jim beam in our $5 happy hour old fashioned and go all the way to a $$1200 old fashioned made with Glenmorangie 1974 Pride. adding sugar, bitters, cherry, orange slice to my top shelf bourbon? not a chance. Any Blended whiskey or rye off the rail will do.

An Old Fashioned is a stirred co*cktail. For a general rule of thumb, if a co*cktail contains only spirits, then you want to stir. If a co*cktail contains juice, dairy, or egg white, then you shake it. When building your Old Fashioned, combine all of the ingredients into a mixing glass before adding the ice.

If the co*cktail ingredients are mostly, or entirely, spirits (such as in a Manhattan, Martini or Negroni), you should stir. If a co*cktail includes juice (such as in a Margarita, Daiquiri or Cosmo), you should shake.

Why stir then? Stirring merely chills and dilutes a co*cktail whereas shaking additionally changes its texture. The ice, being violently shaken about inside the shaker, also aerates the drink with tiny air bubbles, which are held in suspension in the liquid, giving the co*cktail a cloudy appearance.