Recipes

Old Fashioned Cocktail

Old Fashioned

Old Fashioned Cocktail St. Kilian Style

From the St. Kilian "classic whisky cocktails" series

Ingredients:

  • 5 cl St. Kilian Single Malt Whisky mild recipe (best Signature Edition TWELVE)
  • a dash of orange bitters
  • Lump sugar
  • Orange peel
  • one maraschino cherry

Preparation of the Old Fashioned Drink:

Put the sugar cubes in a tumbler and soak with orange bitters. Crush with a pestle and fill with whisky. Then stir and add a large ice cube. Garnishwith an orange peel and a maraschino cherry.

Depending on taste, the drink can also be infused with a little soda water.

If you talk about an American bar, you inevitably end up with the Old Fashioned Cocktail.

Exciting background knowledge on the Old Fashioned Cocktail

The records of its legitimate predecessor, the whisky cocktail, go back to the middle of the 19th century and refer to Jerry Thomas "himself". The most famous bartender of his time.

At that time, however, bartenders still had little leeway when serving their cocktails. Because it could easily happen that, depending on the region, you looked down the barrel of a revolver if you prepared it the wrong way. Americans were very picky about the taste of their drinks.

Towards the end of the 19th century, in the golden age of cocktails, the variations of the whisky cocktail became more and more varied and the bar clientele yearned to go back to the roots. They wanted an old-fashioned drink again - and in the midst of these desires, the Old Fashioned Cocktail was born.

A drink for which you take your time . A drink that makes its connoisseurs slow down and linger over it for a while, escaping from their everyday lives.

An old fashioned is pure deceleration!

The first official record of the Old Fashioned can be found in a newspaper clipping from 1883, although it says that the drink has probably been around for longer than that. There are many stories and legends surrounding its creation. Numerous bartenders from Chicago to Louisville are credited with inventing this classic. The fact is, however, that it is not possible to trace exactly who first prepared the Old Fashioned and where this happened. The only certainty is that it has steadily evolved from its predecessor, the whisky cocktail.

However, the dispute over the exact preparation of the Old Fashioned has dragged on since the first meeting of the International Bartenders Association in 1893 until today. Which garnish to use, rye whiskey or bourbon, sugar syrup or sugar cubes. All these questions divide minds and bartenders. And the question of the uniformly perfect preparation probably remains an unsolved mystery. Because every bartender mixes the Old Fashioned according to his or her preferences. Each bartender has his or her own style and preferences for preparing the perfect personal classic.

The Old Fashioned recipe for classic preparation

For the classic preparation, we take a cue from the German bar pope, Charles Schuhmann. In his book "American Bar" from 1991, he describes his preparation of the Old Fashioned Cocktail:

Old Fashioned (after C. Schuhmann, American Bar, 1991)

  • 1 sugar cube
  • a dash of Angostura bitters
  • 5 cl Bourbon Whiskey
  • Soda water
  • one stem cherry
  • Orange and lemon

Place the sugar cubes in a tumbler and soak with Angostura bitters. Add the orange and lemon quarters and crush with a pestle. Top up with the bourbon and stir well. Then add ice cubes, pour in soda water and stir again.

Garnish with a stemmed cherry.

After the classic preparation, we of course couldn't resist creating our very own version with our single malt whisky :

"Cheers!!!"

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