Which means, of course, how do you make a perfect old fashioned?
Which means, of course, how do you make a perfect old fashioned?
Want to try a good old-fashioned? As above, but use brandy rather than bourbon or rye.
The brandy old-fashioned is one of Wisconsin's gifts to mixed drink culture. The first hit I got on Google for them was something like houseofhipsters.com, so they are cool these days. The traditional brandy of choice, I read, is Korbel.
The brandy old-fashioned is one of Wisconsin's gifts to mixed drink culture. The first hit I got on Google for them was something like houseofhipsters.com, so they are cool these days. The traditional brandy of choice, I read, is Korbel. I have gone out of my way to assemble the traditional ingredients for these. And such a brandy old-fashioned is okay in my book. Despite some favorable reviews that are out there, I find Korbel brandy rather sweet and unrefined, with certain raw alcohol notes, at least in the versions I have tried. I do not really object to the latter, but I prefer corn or rye based whiskies for this purpose. Folks from Wisconsin will surely disagree with me.
I have not tried a cognac in an old-fashioned. Brandy is pretty versatile. I have not reason to think it would be bad!
But I would:
dose a sugar cube, maybe a demerara or some such sugar cube, with a few drops of Angostura bitters (I suppose other bitters of an Angostura-type work); I like having some grainy sugar in the mix rather than sugar syrup
muddle in the bottom of a rocks glass with a half circle slice of orange, being very gentle if anything at all with the peel and pith, but crushing the pulp
I personally nearly always add a cherry, sometimes I muddle it with the sugar cube and orange,