Classic Cocktail Recipes

The first use of the name "Old Fashioned" for a Bourbon whiskey cocktail was said to have been at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen's club founded in 1881 in Louisville, Kentucky. 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.

The original Old-Fashioned was called a whiskey cocktail and later an Old-fashioned Whiskey Cocktail then became know as just an Old-Fashioned.

Old-Fashioned Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 sugar cube (or 1 bar spoon simple syrup)
• 2 dashes Angostura bitter
• 2 ounces rye or bourbon
• Orange twist

Preparation

1. Muddle the sugar cube and bitters with one bar spoon of water at the bottom of a chilled rocks glass. (If using simple syrup, combine bitters and one bar spoon of syrup.) Add rye or bourbon. Stir.
2. Add one large ice cube, or three or four smaller cubes. Stir until chilled and properly diluted, about 30 seconds. Slip orange twist on the side of the cube.