The old fashioned is a cocktail made by muddling sugar with bitters, adding whiskey or, less commonly, brandy, and garnishing with a twist of citrus rind and a cocktail cherry. It is traditionally served in an old fashioned glass, which predated the cocktail. Developed during the 19th century and given its name in the 1880s, it is an IBA Official Cocktail. It is also one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.
History
The first documented definition of the word "cocktail" was in response to a reader's letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806, issue of The Balance and Columbian Repository in Hudson, New York. In the May 13, 1806, issue, the paper's editor wrote that it was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar; it was also referred to at the time as a bittered sling. J.E. Alexander describes the cocktail similarly in 1833, as he encountered it in New York City, as being rum, gin, or brandy, significant water, bitters, and sugar, though he includes a nutmeg garnish as well. By the 1860s, it was common for orange curaçao, absinthe, and other liqueurs to be added to the cocktail. The original concoction, albeit in different proportions, came back into vogue, and was referred to as "old-fashioned". The most popular of the in-vogue "old-fashioned" cocktails were made with whiskey, according to a Chicago barman, quoted in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1882, with rye being more popular than Bourbon. The recipe he describes is a similar combination of spirits, bitters, water and sugar of seventy-six years earlier. The first mention in print of "old fashioned cocktails" was in the Chicago Daily Tribune in February 1880. However, the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen's club founded in 1881 in Louisville, Kentucky, claims the old fashioned cocktail was invented there. The recipe was said to have been invented by a bartender at that club in honor of Colonel James E. Pepper, a prominent bourbon distiller, who brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar in New York City. With its conception rooted in the city's history, in 2015 the city of Louisville named the old fashioned as its official cocktail. Each year, during the first two weeks of June, Louisville celebrates "Old Fashioned Fortnight" which encompasses bourbon events, cocktail specials and National Bourbon Day which is always celebrated on June 14.
Recipe
George Kappeler provides several of the earliest published recipes for old fashioned cocktails in his 1895 book. Recipes are given for whiskey, brandy, Holland gin, and Old Tom gin. The whiskey old fashioned recipe specifies the following : By the 1860s, as illustrated by Jerry Thomas' 1862 book, basic cocktail recipes included Curaçao, or other liqueurs. These liqueurs were not mentioned in the early 19th century descriptions, nor the Chicago Daily Tribune descriptions of the "old fashioned" cocktails of the early 1880s; they were absent from Kappeler's old fashioned recipes as well. The differences of the old fashioned cocktail recipes from the cocktail recipes of the late 19th Century are mainly preparation method, the use of sugar and water in lieu of simple or gomme syrup, and the absence of additional liqueurs. These old fashioned cocktail recipes are literally for cocktails done the old-fashioned way. A book by David Embury published in 1948 provides a slight variation, specifying 12 parts American whiskey, 1 part simple syrup, 1-3 dashes Angostura bitters, a twist of lemon peelover the top, and serve garnished with the lemon peel. Two additional recipes from the 1900s vary in the precise ingredients, but omit the cherry which was introduced after 1930 as well as the soda water which the occasional recipe calls for. Orange bitters were a popular ingredient in the late 19th century.
Modifications
The original old fashioned recipe would have showcased the whiskey available in America in the 19th century: Irish, Bourbon or rye whiskey. But in some regions, especially Wisconsin, brandy is substituted for whiskey. Eventually the use of other spirits became common, such as a gin recipe becoming popularized in the late 1940s. Common garnishes for an old fashioned include an orange slice or a maraschino cherry or both, although these modifications came around 1930, some time after the original recipe was invented. While some recipes began making sparse use of the orange zest for flavor, the practice of muddling orange and other fruit gained prevalence as late as the 1990s. Some modern variants have greatly sweetened the old fashioned, e.g. by adding blood orange soda to make a fizzy old fashioned, or muddled strawberries to make a strawberry old fashioned.
Cultural impact
The old fashioned is the cocktail of choice of Don Draper, the lead character on the Mad Men television series, set in the 1960s. The use of the drink in the series coincided with a renewed interest in this and other classic cocktails in the 2000s. In the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, pilot Tyler Fitzgerald directs passenger Dingy Bell to the aircraft's bar to "make us some old fashioneds." Annoyed by suggestions that he should limit drinking while piloting an airplane, and finding Bell's old fashioneds too sweet, Fitzgerald turns the controls over to Bell's sidekick Benjy Benjamin and retires to the back of the plane to "make some old fashioneds the old fashioned way, the way dear old dad used to." When Benjamin asks what if something happens, Fitzgerald replies, "What could happen to an old fashioned?" In the television series M*A*S*H, character Margaret Houlihan frequently orders an old fashioned, "without the fruit", while in the Officers Club. In the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love, the old fashioned is the preferred cocktail of pickup artist Jacob Palmer, and he is shown drinking it both in the bar and at home.
