How to Make an Old Fashioned Cocktail

It’s impossible to drink an Old Fashioned and not feel that you’ve stepped slightly deeper within yourself. Stretching back to the early 1800s, its roots linger through numerous variations woven through sweetness and an enduring burnished character that suggests low-lit, carefree dates and time to kill. I find it dreamy and reflective, the thickening texture of the sugar syrup expanding through that resonant, orangey bourbon and hypnotic amber trailing around a singular icy monolith. It’s the equivalent of drinking what I imagine a bonfire would taste like if it was laced with demerara sugar and the well-wishes of all the fairies and gods hidden giggling in the shadows. Perhaps it’s the echo of the charred oak that bourbon soaks into as it mellows and ages that brings this to the fore. I certainly love sipping an Old Fashioned at a barbecue. It stands for steadfast resolve – at a time when whisky cocktails became fancier and more convoluted, simple Old Fashioned cocktails held firm. The straightforward nature of the drink is, I suspect, what allows space for gentle sips to bring richer ideas to unpromising conversations, and the Old Fashioned strikes me as one of those rare cocktails where one is either too much or plenty. I witnessed this first-hand in the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky, which lays claim to the place where sugar syrup and muddled fruit first featured in the Old Fashioned. Who knows how much truth there is to this; all I can say for sure is that my drinking companion’s appetite for the Old Fashioned was as undimmed as the dawn which crept imperceptibly around us as we continued gently chuckling into the rising light.