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
- 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.
- 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.