Adding a little classy to your glassy.
One of my first jobs was working as a short order cook at a country club. I spent my summers stuffing spoiled, hyperactive children full of chocolate milkshakes and chicken fingers like some sort of gangly, awkward nanny while their moms flirted with tennis instructors and their dads got plastered on the golf course. I worked six days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, open to close, for just barely above minimum wage.
To this day it’s still my favorite job I’ve ever had (sorry, Struck). I kept at it for 6 summers straight.
The summer after my sophomore year in college was a strange one. I didn’t care to see people from high school, and the engine in my car blew up, so I wouldn’t have been able to hang out even if I wanted to (I forgot to keep an eye on an oil leak, leaving the engine block bone dry. But that’s a different story). I worked during the day and tore through Stephen King’s Dark Tower series at night.
Even so, working 8–6 wasn’t keeping me busy enough, so I decided to learn how to sling drinks at the club’s bar. I figured the job was just going to be pouring beer while pretending not to hear overweight, balding, married men brag about their mistresses they’d meet up with in Boston while they were on “business.”
This is where I learned to make an Old Fashioned.
More specifically, this is where I learned to make an Old Fashioned 49 God-damned different ways, each with different ratios of different ingredients. Every person that orders this drink wants it done a very specific way. At the club they would sit there and watch me make it and throw a tantrum if I used superfine sugar instead of Splenda, or if I just used an orange rind rather than a slice, or only two dashes of bitters instead of three. It was enough to make me never ever want to drink one.
Now? It’s my favorite drink.
Unlike what the cranky old men at the Essex County Club would have you believe, there is no one way to make an Old Fashioned. Sure, there’s a recipe, but there’s so much you can play with. This is how I make one…
Ingredients:
Rye Whiskey
Simple Syrup
Bitters
Fresh Orange
Maraschino Cherry
Water
The Whiskey: Nothing too sweet. Nothing too dry and peaty — I like a middle of the road whiskey like Bullet Rye.
Simple Syrup: Sure you can buy it, but $7 a bottle for sugar water is insane. Put one cup of water and one cup of sugar in a saucepan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. I add a touch of brown sugar to the mix to give it a little bit more flavor. You’ll make plenty and it keeps forever.
Bitters: There’s so much more than that little bottle with the yellow cap and oversized label. Bitters come in thousands of flavors and scents. For a classic Old Fashioned, get something with orange.
Fresh Orange: You’ll be using the peel, so pick a clean one and give it a good rinse.
Maraschino Cherry: Optional, but fancy.
Water: Not optional. Soda water (not tonic!) works well if you like a little fizziness. I do.
Start with a nice clean rocks glass. Add one teaspoon of simple syrup and 2–3 dashes of bitters. Give it a good stir to mix. Add ice.
Want crystal clear ice? Don’t boil it. Don’t use soda water or any other of those stupid “one weird trick” things. Clear ice takes time, more time than it takes your freezer to freeze water. Here’s what you do: put a small igloo cooler (or insulated lunch box in my case) in the freezer, and put your ice tray IN THAT. It’ll slow the freezing process enough to keep your ice from clouding up.
Add 2.5 ounces of your whiskey along with a dash of water. Squeeze the orange peel over the glass to get the oils out, and then toss the whole thing in along with the cherry. Give it all another stir (don’t shake).
And don’t let Don Draper fool you — you can enjoy an Old Fashioned without cheating on your wife and destroying your family.
