lain's Basic and Bulletproof Old Fashioned cocktail

Hello !boozers

Here's a very basic old fashioned recipe. If your reaction is "this is literally a basic old fashion" - you are correct.

During my experimentation these are the core ingredients and steps required to make a good Old Fashioned.

By following these steps to a T I believe you will end up with a better old fashion than most bars.

Ingredients

1.) Whiskey Glass - Having a basic "rocks" glass is a decent idea, it's more trendy to have "tulip" style but a "rocks" glass is the traditional choice.

2.) Ice Mold - I have found ice molds are totally worth it. The interplay of the ice and spirit is key in an Old Fashion and the molds let the ice melt at a slower, more consistent rate.

3.) Metal Toothpick - Very nice to work with vs wood or whatever. Cleans easy, cheap and looks way better.

4.) Measuring Device - I am personally using a small jigger, knowing how much your measuring device holds is essential.

5.) Peeler / Good knife skills - We'll use this to get the top of the rind of the orange.

6.) Fresh Orange - We will be using the oils in the skin.

7.) Bitters - A bottle of proper Angostura Bitters will last you forever, this is what we'll be using in this recipe.

8.) Luxardo Cherries - These SoBs are expensive but 100% worth it. You should need to use one or two per drink so they do last.

9.) Simple Syrup - Simple Syrup is literally sugar water. Very old recipes would call for sugar cubes and grinding them into the drink but this is silly. You can make this yourself buy boiling 1 part water and then adding 1 part sugar (i.e. 1 cup sugar to 1 cup boiling water). Put it in a recycled bottle and top with vodka to store for months.

10.) Spirit - I will be using Bourbon Whiskey but you can be pretty creative with this. I basically recommend any aged base spirit (Whiskey, Bourbon, Rye Whiskey, Scotch Whisky, Brandy, Aged Rum, Cognac, etc). The sweetness of your spirit is what you'll use to gauge the syrup amount.

Steps

1.) Add ice to your glass.

2.) Measure 90ml of your spirit. A usual pour is 60ml but rocks drinks are conventionally 1.5x.

3.) Add a splash of simple syrup. this ranges from 10ml-20ml, depending on your spirits sweetness. I usually do 15ml on unfamiliar bottles and then adjust from there.

4.) Add three dashes of bitters. Stir.

5.) Stab your cherry and fight with it until you make it in the glass

6.) Cut off a very thin slice of only the top of the orange rind. That's where all the orange oil is.

7.) Fold the rind just-so above your drink so, if you look closely you'll see the oil spray across the glass. I can get a solid two spritzes out of a cut. Drop it into the drink after.

8.) Enjoy!