Now that we’ve seen what makes a great traditional Old Fashioned cocktail we’ll study little variations on the theme…

As seen the OF is just Whiskey, sugar, bitters and citrus oils to brighten things up.

Exchange Angostura for Peychauds and you’ll end up with a very similar cocktail, or maybe you are out of whiskey and will use a Cognac… you all know that right?

The template would go something like this:

Old Fashioned Cocktail Template

       1tsp sweetner

2oz Spirit

   3ds bitters

Build & stir. Garnish aromatically.

This is a 12:1 ratio of booze to syrup and also 3 dashes of bitters per part of syrup. You can increase the amount of syrup, let’s say, to ¼oz and get a 8:1 ratio, adjust to your tastes.

The ingredients should play harmoniously.

Your sweetner and bitters should enhance your base spirit.

I also don’t think a Celery bitters will play well with a smoky Scotch, but it might play well with a highland Tequila…

Having said that, here are some cocktails that use this template:

JAPANESE 

1tsp Orgeat

2oz Cognac

3ds Angostura

Make like the traditional OF.
This is a very nice match, the orgeat really gets trough the dark berries notes of the Cognac I used (Hennessy VSOP) giving another dimension in taste. I would go dried than 10:1, this is a very powerful syrup.

The orange gets in the end refreshing the palate from the spicy-almond-berry flavor from the cocktail.

Next up one of my favorites use of Amaro…

TORONTO

1tsp Simple Syrup

1tsp Fernet 

2oz Bourbon

Make like the traditional OF.

With amari you’ll need to use a little more than dashes, but use sparingly.
This will go on a 12:1:1 ratio.

A nice variation I like is using Brasilberg/Underberg. Try with your favorite amaro…

Again the citrus helps the threesome here.

Those we’re very simple cocktails to reinforce the power of a well made Old Fashioned Cocktail.

What’s your favorite Old-Fashioned-esque cocktail?

Wait till next post, where we’ll go beyond the template…

Saúde!