11 Bartenders Make an Old Fashioned (Classic, Flair, Speed & More)

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So an Old Fashioned essentially is going

to be whiskey, it's going to be sugar,

it's going to be bitters.

When it comes to making a good Old Fashioned,

there are a number of factors.

Number one, I want it not too sweet.

I know people say that a lot,

but it is so true in the Old Fashioned.

Number two, the spirit that I use,

I want the proof to be up there.

I don't want an 80 proof.

I don't want an 86 proof whiskey.

That's great for shaken whiskey cocktails,

but I gotta get up to the mid 90s on my proof,

or even 101.

This is a spirit forward cocktail.

So the first thing you're gonna use

in an Old Fashioned is bitters.

Bitters are the spice rack of your bowl.

I love the spice that comes

with Angostura bitters.

So I'm gonna use three dashes in them.

So this is going to give you that punch

with that spice that's been mixed.

It's 200 years old.

This is the most tried and true one

that there is.

How much bitters do you want to use?

That's up to each person.

That is always different.

Next is the sugar.

Traditionally people would use sugar cubes

back in the day and muddle that

until that was dissolved.

Nowadays we have syrups.

When we use a Demerara syrup,

this is a two-part sugar to one part water

by weight concoction.

We say to use a quarter of an ounce in this.

I don't go all the way up

to that quarter ounce line

because I don't want it to be too sweet.

Now the argument on the whiskey,

you can do bourbon or do you want rye?

We can do either.

Bourbon's gonna be a little more sweet,

so people who want a little more kick

and spice are gonna choose rye.

I'm gonna use a rye right now.

This is 90.4 proof.

It's probably the lowest end

of what I would go with on this one.

How much whiskey are we gonna put in here?

We're gonna do two ounces.

We're gonna fill it up.

I want to get to that meniscus so it just goes

right up over the edge, and boom.

We have all of our ingredients in here.

What do we need?

Ice, vanilla, ice, ice.

We're gonna stir it.

We're not shaking it.

We want the slow dilution on there.

We don't wanna make

this a water whiskey cocktail.

When I put this on your table,

I want you to see a beautiful block of ice

that has not been melted down at all.

We have a stamp because branding

of ice has become very vogue

in the current climate.

We got the PB for Pebble Bar here.

Once I've stamped that,

there's gonna be water at the bottom of that.

I wanna dump that water out.

So we have our Old Fashioned.

I've done it well.

It's perfectly diluted,

not too sweet, already cold on that block of ice.

So every Old Fashioned you get,

should come with an orange twist.

What we do and some other places do is

we also add a lemon twist.

Ready to go.

I give you our Old Fashioned.

An Old Fashioned has to start

with muddled fruit.

A lot of the young bartenders

now put the cherry and the orange,

the sugar and the bitters in it,

and they do a twist

and you don't get the flavors

of the fruit the way you should be.

If you gave me an Old Fashioned didn't start

with muddled fruit, I'd send it back.

So we're gonna take our cherry,

gonna put the cherry in the glass

and take a slice of orange.

We're gonna take some bar sugar.

Bar sugar is a quick dissolving sugar.

Doesn't matter if you mix it with cold water,

hot water, it dissolves instantly.

Now we're gonna take our Angostura bitters.

Do a couple of dashes in there.

Get your muddler.

The fruit has to be macerated.

Then you're gonna pour your bourbon in.

Woodford is a extremely smooth bourbon,

and then you're gonna put a splash of club soda

on top just to cut the sweetness.

And then you're gonna put some ice cubes in.

And there you go.

There's your Old Fashioned.

Modern tropical bars usually tend

to have really fun, unexpected ingredients.

Today I'm gonna be making these

Spam Fried Rice Old Fashions.

We're gonna be starting off

with Angostura bitters.

Every Old Fashioned

should have Angostura bitters

or some sort of bitters substitute.

Brings a little bit more balance to the sweet

and the spirit that you're using.

So we're switching up the traditional sugar base

by using a toasted-rice syrup

that we make in house emulating the flavors

of fried rice as well as a little bit

of cane to give it a sweet undertone,

but not an overt sweetness

that you get from traditional simple syrup.

Now for the fun stuff.

In a tiki bar like Paradise Lost,

we love split basing our spirits.

Split basing is a technique

where instead of using just one spirit,

we're kind of playing the game.

Instead of whiskey, we're using a little bit

of cane as well as a little bit of Mezcal.

Clairin is going

to be a cane distillate from Haiti.

Really beautiful, grassy and [indistinct].

Now for the star of the show,

this is going to be our spam-infused Mezcal.

At Paradise Lost,

the way that we get our spam infusion

is to cube up the spam, fry it up,

make sure that you get those little bits

that are burnt on the end and parts of char

that you're missing from whiskey,

and then just let it sit overnight

inside some Mezcal, straighten it out,

and then you have your spam Mezcal.

Time to get cracking.

[ice clinking]

And when you're steering, you're really trying

to focus on dilution, chilling,

as well as keeping the clarity of the actual base

that you're using.

In my head, I have very specific counts

of how many revolutions I wanna stir for

in order to dilute the proper amount down

from what the starting proof is.

For a base spirit that's around 40% alcohol,

you kind of wanna stir it

around 60 revolutions.

That gives it just about an ounce

of dilution per cocktail.

It gives you a way of elongating the drink,

but still being able to taste all the flavors

that are inside of your cocktail.

This is a rocks glass,

the traditional serve of an Old Fashioned.

You have a really beautiful big ice cube

in there so that it slows down the dilution.

Large ice cubes will have less surface area,

so that means that your drink's gonna water

down much slower and much less.

Just gonna give it a little bit of flare

by stamping it with a Paradise Lost logo.

Freshly graded nutmeg imparts a really

beautiful aroma to the drink.

Weird is always good.

Let's get weird.

I think we should be more weird.

Personally, I really like the kind

of steakhouse Old Fashioned

with the muddled cherries.

But in order to make an Old Fashioned efficient,

you have to be a little bit quicker.

We're gonna start with like two and a half ounces

of Misguided whiskey.

It's a rye and bourbon blend.

It's delicious.

We free pour because it's a lot quicker

to free pour.

And I'm gonna do about two bar spoons full.

A simple syrup, you don't want it

to be too sweet.

Doused in some Angostura bitters.

And you just give the orange peel.

Boom, boom, boom.

Old Fashioned.

I like to keep my Old Fashions pretty classic.

I mean it's in the name.

It's one of the original cocktails.

When it comes to making Old Fashions.

You always wanna start off with your bitters.

I like to do three heavy dashes of Angostura.

I like to do three dashes

of orange bitters as well.

The orange bitters adds more

of a citrus orange flavor without the acid.

So you'll see a lot of people

use straight granulated sugar.

I don't like my Old Fashions with texture.

I like mine pretty smooth

and I like mine to have body.

So I always used a two to one rich syrup made

with an unrefined sugar.

And because I work with so many different chefs

from all different backgrounds of cuisine,

so I always use different sugars

made all over the world.

The one that I'm gonna be using right here

is gonna be a Chinese slab sugar.

So we're gonna do a scant

or just below a quarter ounce

of two to one syrup.

For our base spirit today,

we're actually gonna do a split base,

which means we're gonna

use two different spirits.

We're gonna be using rye whiskey today,

which is 95 proof,

which is means a little bit hotter,

you have a little bit more

of a peppery flavor profile to it

rather than your vanilla,

caramelly notes of bourbon.

And one of the original cocktails

that you may have seen a lot that is derived

from the Old Fashioned is a Sazerac.

So the original Old Fashioned Sazerac

was made with cognac.

And so as kind of a nod to it

and just because I really love cognac,

I'm gonna be doing three quarters of an ounce.

And then we're gonna add some ice cubes

to our Yarai mixing glass.

I always try to make sure that there's a bit

of ice peeking out above the liquid.

So if I'm stirring it

and it goes below the ice line,

that means it'll dilute too fast.

So then now we're gonna pour.

So I'm just expressing the orange peel

as it's pouring in there.

So it kind of gets the orange and lemon flavors

into the cocktail a little bit more.

You'll see a lot of people kind

of wipe the edges.

I don't like that

'cause it just gets your fingers sticky.

So I kind of just keep the orange oils

and lemon oils on top

and just stick 'em right in and enjoy.

At the Plaza Hotel,

we do a muddled Old Fashioned.

An Old Fashioned doesn't have

to be muddled fruit, but we thought

that it would appeal to a greater audience.

For my Old Fashioned,

I'm gonna start here with a sugar

in the raw that I use.

It's got a bigger grain to it,

but it really muddles up really nice.

I use one slice of orange and one Luxardo cherry.

And then I'm going to give

it a little muddle here

and add some Angostura bitters.

So three good dashes.

A lot of other bartenders

use different spirits in an Old Fashioned,

but ours is made the classic way with bourbon.

I give it a nice little stir

and then I'm gonna strain it

onto a large ice sphere.

We freeze solid blocks of ice

and we have this wonderful ice ball maker

at The Plaza.

It makes a beautiful sphere right

in front of the guest's eyes.

And a round ice cube has very little surface

so it melts even slower than a block of ice.

So we have a stamp.

It's got our logo on it.

Finish it with an orange twist.

This releases the oils over the drink.

And our Luxardo cherry because it's delicious.

This is the classic garnish

for an Old Fashioned at the Plaza Hotel.

It's like a piece of old times in a glass.

I think the biggest thing for Old Fashions

is that they have to be balanced.

The idea behind an old fashion is

that you're really just taking whiskey

and letting it shine by adding small amounts

of flavoring ingredients,

but it's not supposed

to hide the main ingredient,

which at the end of the day is the whiskey.

We start with a little Angostura bitters.

I think this is

where most bartenders get into trouble.

I only use a teaspoon of Demerara syrup

and I think the majority of bartenders

out there make the mistake of putting

more simple syrup or some kind

of Demerara in there,

which makes the drink cloyingly sweet

and way too round.

It almost overpowers the rye

and kind of knocks it off balance.

And then we're gonna do Rittenhouse rye.

So to make it Old Fashioned,

I find that two and a half ounces

of the rye is really where we want to be.

[drink pouring]

So I'm gonna stir this up really, really good.

Get it nice and cold.

And then I'm just gonna simply strain this

out over a nice large rock.

I'll just express it over the top.

Get those orange distances

on the top of the drink.

Simply slide it down the side

and there is your Rittenhouse rye Old Fashion.

Enjoy.

I work in a pretty high volume bar

and even in a nightlife setting,

Old Fashioned are definitely

in the top selling cocktails.

So I'm gonna go in with three heavy dashes

and Angostura is one of the most staining

ingredients of all time.

Next is simple syrups.

I like to build in the glass

for an Old Fashioned or a stirred

down cocktail 'cause it's faster

and it gives the same quality cocktail

as if you were to build it in a mixing glass.

And then our final ingredient is going

to be Old Forester.

So I'm gonna go in with two ounces.

This is 86 proof bourbon.

So you don't wanna knock someone

out just off of one.

You wanna be responsible,

especially when you're serving alcohol, right?

I do have large cubes here.

So we're just gonna place that down

into our cocktail.

And once again, we're gonna go in two spoons

and give her maybe 20 to 30 stirs.

An orange peel compliments the notes

of the bourbon really nicely,

whereas a lemon is gonna

compliment the notes of rye.

Peel side out.

And I really do like to wipe it

around the side of the glass

so that when you pick up the glass

and bring it to your face,

you smell the peels.

That's our Old Fashioned.

This is my version of the Old Fashioned drink.

It's kind of like Japanese style

tea and cacao, Old Fashioned.

Let's make it.

Ice.

The Lost Explorer Tobalá,

30 mil,

and white Cacao liqueur, 15,

for the sweetness.

And a little Japanese whiskey for body.

So this is a bitter element

and a main kind of like tea flavor profile.

So this moment I'm using the Kyoto Uji Matcha.

The color is totally different.

It's very black and less bitterness.

It's a beautiful balance of the bitterness.

This is like a natural Angostura bitters.

Strain it.

Try to stir.

Also gentle.

This is a hot coconut water, 30 mil.

I don't want to get super cold temperature

and of course no bubble.

But for the tea.

So it need get the creamy,

like texture of the [indistinct] matcha.

It's a two element and combined together.

You get a lot of aroma from beautiful matcha

and beautiful foam.

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Perfect.

So on the top is a Hanaho [indistinct].

It's a shiso flower.

Each flower has shiso flavor.

After a couple of sip,

take a bite and drink.

Enjoy it.

The Old Fashioned is a really

easy drink to learn as a home bartender.

If I did it, anyone can.

I'm going to take just a little bit of sugar.

You want probably about a teaspoon.

This is one of those things

that over time you can figure out

what you like or what someone else likes

in terms of the sweetness of it.

I'm gonna use just a couple dashes

of these Angostura bitters, which is going

to give the drink a really good complexity.

And then I am going to take just a little bit

of water and dump that in just to give a teensy

more liquid to mix in with the sugar.

Then you can take a muddling stick or a spoon

or whatever it is to get that sugar

nice and melted up.

I like to muddle in the glass

just because I like doing fewer dishes.

I'm gonna throw in some ice,

'cause again, we love a chilled cocktail.

Let's throw in just a little bit of that,

which looks good.

Let's just a little bit more, there.

You just want to get it to where it is mixed up.

You know what, that's looking a little light.

I might toss in just a little bit more of this.

I pour until the ancestors tell me

to stop on this one.

And the Luxardo cherries

are worth the investment.

They are a little bit more expensive,

but they last a really super long time

in the syrup.

I'm gonna take a bit of this orange

and rim it around the glass just

to give it a little bit a flavor.

And then I'm just gonna rub this

to activate the orange flavor.

Drop it in, give it one final little stir.

And there you go.

My home Old Fashioned.

Some people order Old Fashioneds

at a neighborhood bar.

I like to be fully transparent.

In a neighborhood bar,

we don't have turbinado sugar,

so I say I can make an Old Fashioned,

but I'm gonna use simple syrup.

Is that all right?

And most people say it's fine,

but then occasionally you get the person

that's like, Oh, I'll just take a shot

of Fireball in a Bud Light instead,

as if that's like a normal juxtaposition.

[chuckles]

We don't have space for mixing glasses

and it's such an infrequently ordered cocktail

that those mixing glasses

that are super delicate, they break

and it's not worth it.

For me, I just build it right in the glass.

So I start with a couple dashes

of Angostura bitters.

One of the benefits of using simple syrup

is that you don't need to put a splash

of club soda or water in it.

The only reason people don't love that

is because it's a little sweeter,

but it's fine.

For building in the glass,

I just put everything in first

and then I add the ice.

Probably like three cubes of ice.

This is a blend of an Irish whiskey and a rye.

It is 80 proof, but it's so smooth

and it finishes with a little bit of that pepper,

but it's not overpowering.

When people use high proof alcohol

in high volume bars,

you're just kind of asking for trouble.

Also, you don't make money

if you get them too drunk too fast.

And then I just do a little twist of orange

just so that you get the aroma of it.

Because especially with the simple,

it's sweet enough that I don't muddle fruit.

I don't waste my time with all that.

And the way that this is done,

that last sip is going to be your sweet sip,

which is gonna make you wanna order

that next drink.

So this is my Old Fashioned.

Alright, cheers.

I give you one of my favorite cocktails.

I mean, it's literally,

this is the best whiskey.

[laughs] This is amazing.

Yeah.

So I probably put in a little bit

too much bourbon.

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