A TV personality, food scientist, and author walks into a bar and orders an old fashioned. No, this isn’t the start of a joke — we’re describing what Alton Brown does when faced with an unfamiliar watering hole. An old fashioned is a cocktail with only a few ingredients — bourbon or rye, bitters, sugar, and an orange peel — but a storied history. And, to Brown’s mind, the cocktail is a challenge for a bartender to get just right. So even though the Boulevardier is his go-to tipple of choice, if he’s getting the lay of the land at a new bar, ordering an old fashioned lets him covertly test the bartender’s skills.
The old fashioned has been around since the 19th century, and according to “The Old Fashioned: An Essential Guide to the Original Whiskey Cocktail,” it may be the closest thing to the first cocktail in history that you can still get. It’s “simple to make but requires practice to perfect,” and Brown agrees — the cocktail puts a number of bartending skills to the test.
The skills required for a perfect old fashioned
It would seem like the fewer ingredients a cocktail has, the easier it would be to make, but that’s not necessarily true. With an old fashioned, each element needs to work in harmony to produce the best result, from the type of sugar to the care spent muddling the sugar, water, and bitters to achieve the right mouthfeel and sweetness. Even how the bartender prepares and adds the orange twist to the drink is important, as is the time spent stirring the cocktail to achieve the optimal temperature. But listening may be the key skill required.
To start, the bartender should ask you whether you want bourbon or rye and what brand you’d prefer. Alton Brown is an avowed rye fan, though he swaps out rye for bourbon in his pecan pie recipe and has waffled in the past on whether he prefers it for his old fashioned. On his website, he said he drinks it with rye, while on another occasion, he told The Daily Beast he preferred it with bourbon and orange bitters rather than more typical choices like Angostura or Peychaud’s.
That brings us to the next question your bartender should be asking: “What type of bitters do you prefer?” If the bartender is worth their salt, you’ll end up with a perfectly prepared old fashioned. And if not, maybe get a beer or something on the rocks for your next round.
