How I Make an Old Fashioned _ the ONE cocktail you must know

Pretty picture, pretty picture. Hello, it's Anders Ericsson. Today, I'm going to show you how to make an old-fashioned. Okay, so the old-fashioned. This is a big one. You can't have a cocktail channel and not mention this cocktail because it is the drink that started all other cocktails. The old-fashioned is by rule a spirit, bitters, sugar, and water. Traditionally, originally, it was whiskey, but I love a good brandy old-fashioned. I love a good rum old-fashioned, a good mezcal old-fashioned. Today, I'm going to show you how to make a whiskey old-fashioned. It's kind of gloomy out today, so I want whiskey. To the bar! You coming? So this is a lowball glass, also called a rocks glass or an old-fashioned glass. And a lot of bartenders build the cocktail in the glass. I'm saying glass a lot. What they do is they take a sugar cube and they'll put it on the bottom and saturate it with bitters and then muddle it into a paste. This is the traditional way of making an old-fashioned. I do find that the sugar crystals, for the most part, stay at the bottom of the cocktail. So as you drink it, it just gets sweeter and sweeter. They used to serve it with a little spoon so that you could scoop out the sugar at the end of the cocktail. But I'm not going to build this cocktail in the old-fashioned glass. I'm going to build it in my mixing glass with a rich Demerara syrup, just to ensure a more uniform cocktail. Demerara is a raw sugar, and I chose to go with Demerara because it just offers a little bit more than straight sweetness. It has like a subtle toffee flavor that I really like. And to make a rich syrup, you're going to do two parts sugar to one part water, combined over heat. If you don't have Demerara sugar, you can use turbinado or even a light brown sugar. Okay, so the booze. I'm going to be making a bourbon old-fashioned, so we're going to need bourbon. And bitters. The bourbon I'm using is Colonel E.H. Taylor small batch, and the bitters is Angostura aromatic bitters. This is a hundred proof bourbon. I like to use a higher proof because it holds up to the dilution and the sugar that I'm going to be adding. But you should use whatever bourbon you enjoy. As for the bitters, there are a lot of different bitters out there, and some that market themselves as old-fashioned bitters. But Angostura is the gold standard. It's been around longer than the old-fashioned itself, and it's my personal favorite. Now we build. First things first, I've cut a small piece of orange that I'm going to stir with the cocktail. I'm not going to muddle it. I just like the subtle citrus notes that you get from a piece of orange. Cut a small piece and drop it right in. Next, we'll add the sugar. So I'm going to add a quarter ounce of the rich Demerara syrup. And then the bitters. Four dashes of Angostura bitters. I like Ango. And finally the bourbon. All right, sorry. And two ounces of bourbon. At this point, before you add ice to the mixing glass, you'll want to add ice to your rocks glass. That way, as soon as you're done stirring, you can just pour it right on top. So glad I got these ice tongs. So I use a large piece of ice as opposed to smaller cubes, because the old-fashioned is meant to be sipped over time. The larger ice chunk will melt slower than the cubes, therefore diluting it slower. You can enjoy it longer. It doesn't change as much. If you want a larger piece of ice, you can get the larger molds, or if you want to get really fancy, and make clear ice that melts even slower. At this point, we can add ice and stir. So this is going to be a quick stir because we're pouring it over ice. We just want to combine the ingredients and give it a slight chill. Then we can strain off the cocktail. As for the garnish, I'm going to do a zest of orange just to bring out the citrus and brighten up the cocktail. And then a cocktail cherry because it's good. Make it look pretty. There it is. The cocktail that started it all. The old-fashioned. Cheers. If you only know how to make one cocktail, this is the one. It's simple, delicious, and simple. Play around with other ingredients. I encourage you to try different spirits, different sweeteners. Every bartender has their own old-fashioned, and they all differ from each other, but they all come back to spirit, bitters, sugar, water. If you want to dig in deeper on the subject, I highly recommend the book The Old Fashioned by Robert Simonson. I'll put a link down below. If you like this video, please like and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Cheers! Cheers!