An old fashioned Old Fashioned
An old fashioned Old Fashioned
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Post #31 - December 17th, 2011, 10:39 amHa, that's cute.
Been reading a lot of books about cocktails lately. It's amazing how much our national knowledge of cocktails, a very American tradition, stems almost exclusively from not just the post-prohibition era but specifically from the latter half of the 20th century. By then many traditional drinks and ingredients had been long forgotten or overlooked, and quickly much of America's collective drinking habits had been corrupted by the classless slosh of college (over)drinking and pre-legal catch-as-catch-can desperation (both reflections of our implicit and explicit puritanical repression). The cocktail resurgence seems to me akin to the slow food movement, where it's more about the preparation, provenance and ingredients than the desired effect.
After all, all booze will get you drunk. The joy and wonder of a good cocktail is in working the balance of these few in-tune ingredients, counteracting the cultural impact of kids-stuff sweet drinks and goofy kitchen sink concoctions. For that we can thank the goofy guys with the big mustaches as much as we can thank the tattooed baristas for bringing us out of the instant coffee dark ages.
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Post #32 - December 19th, 2011, 11:47 amPer Dave Wondrich (on a different message board):...There are two ways of looking at drink families in play here, the historical and the mixological. While these tend to overlap quite a bit, the alignment is never perfect, leading to off-kilter debates.....
Historically, there's the cocktail/cock-tail. This evolved over time, roughly thus:
ca. 1800: spirits, water, sugar, bitters; stirred
ca. 1840: spirits, syrup or sugar + splash of water, bitters, ice; rolled or stirred; served with ice
ca. 1843: option of adding absinthe
ca. 1860: spirits, syrup or sugar + splash of water, bitters, ice, lemon twist; shaken or stirred; served up or with ice
+ option of adding curacao
+ " " " " " sugar rim
+ " " " " " splash of lemon juice
These three options prove, for some, to be a trigger-point, forcing the name of the drink to be qualified as "fancy" or changed to "crusta." But for the general run of drinkers they don't bring the drink to the threshold of name-change. In other words, they're modifications, not alterations.
Then:
ca. 1870: + option of adding vermouth
But this addition of vermouth proves to be a trigger-point, forcing the creation of an "Old-Fashioned" cocktail category, where the purists get their say. This is hinted at in print in the 1860s, discussed by 1880 and first appears in a cocktail book in 1888 (Theodore Proulx's Bartender's Manual). This is analogous to what happened to the Gin Martini in the 1980s, or the Mint Julep after the Civil War, where the most reductive, narrow definition of the drink was held up as the original standard, whereas the original drink being evoked allowed much more latitude, as it had yet to become a marker of identity or a subject of ideology.
This "Old-Fashioned" style cocktail then undergoes evolution of its own: by 1916, the garnish has gotten a little more fancy. By 1933, the drink has absorbed the fruit-garnished Whiskey Toddy, making the muddled Old-Fashioned of 1940s-1960s fame. (Then, of course, come the new purists, and . . . .)
There's a period, roughly 1870-1905, when the original cocktail and the Old-Fashioned overlap; when you could order a "whiskey Cocktail" in a bar and expect in most instances to get a shaken blend of whiskey (or gin, or brandy), syrup, bitters, perhaps with a splash of curacao or even maraschino and a dash of absinthe, strained and served up with a twist. You might have to talk to your bartender a bit first, though.
As for the mixological Old-Fashioned:
The original cocktail can also be defined as a composition of spirits, sweetener, bittering agent, diluent (that, as Wikipedia informs me, is the correct word for 'diluting agent') and optional citrus oil float.
Each of these components can, of course, be viewed prismatically, so to speak: the spirit element can be unitary--whiskey--or composite--tequila and mezcal. The same goes for any of the other components. Ingredients can easily do double duty, e.g., functioning as both bittering agent and sweetener.
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Post #33 - December 19th, 2011, 11:54 amtoria wrote:Can anyone tell me why they use brandy for so many drinks in Wisconsin? I have heard this for years in my family and wondered if it is an urban myth but I see that it must be true. What accounts for it?
There's no hard proof but Robert Simonson (The New York Times, Imbibe, etc) says we might be able to blame the Germans and the Columbian Exposition of 1893.
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Post #34 - December 19th, 2011, 12:20 pmkathryn wrote:toria wrote:Can anyone tell me why they use brandy for so many drinks in Wisconsin? I have heard this for years in my family and wondered if it is an urban myth but I see that it must be true. What accounts for it?
There's no hard proof but Robert Simonson (The New York Times, Imbibe, etc) says we might be able to blame the Germans and the Columbian Exposition of 1893.
I'll throw in something more cultural but anecdotal -- there's a ton of Swiss in Wisconsin -- the Swiss drink a lot of brandy.
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Post #35 - December 19th, 2011, 11:06 pmjimswside wrote:A couple I had last weekend in Wisconsin. Both made with brandy. The first was ok, too much carbonation. The second was awesome, no carbonation, just packed with alcohol.
Kall Inn Supper Club(Hazel Green, WI.):
Country Heights Supper CLub(Hazel Green, WI.) and Motor Inn:
So the Country Heights one was the one you liked?
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Post #36 - December 20th, 2011, 8:08 amLAZ wrote:jimswside wrote:A couple I had last weekend in Wisconsin. Both made with brandy. The first was ok, too much carbonation. The second was awesome, no carbonation, just packed with alcohol.
Kall Inn Supper Club(Hazel Green, WI.):
Country Heights Supper CLub(Hazel Green, WI.) and Motor Inn:
So the Country Heights one was the one you liked?
yes, definitely..
The Country Heights one was the last one I needed for the night, the other one I had wasnt bad by any means though.
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Post #37 - December 23rd, 2011, 8:39 pmIn between wrapping gifts, I'm making and drinking some Old Fashioneds here at Chez Suburban . . .
2.5+ ounces Ancient Ancient Age Bourbon
1 barspoon 2:1 demerara syrup
~15 drops of Velvet Tango Room bitters (thanks, Paulius!)
stir vigorously with ice, strain over large rock
Express lemon and orange oil
Sip, drain, repeat
Happy Holidays!
=R=By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself. --Kambei Shimada
Every human interaction is an opportunity for disappointment --RS
There's a horse loose in a hospital --JM
That don't impress me much --Shania Twain
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Post #38 - December 23rd, 2011, 9:34 pmronnie_suburban wrote:In between wrapping gifts, I'm making and drinking some Old Fashioneds here at Chez Suburban . . .
2.5+ ounces Ancient Ancient Age Bourbon
1 barspoon 2:1 demerara syrup
~15 drops of Velvet Tango Room bitters (thanks, Paulius!)
stir vigorously with ice, strain over large rock
Express lemon and orange oil
Sip, drain, repeat
Happy Holidays!
=R=
Nice!!! I think I know what I'll be offering pre-dinner Christmas day. Got everything to copy but those bitters but I've got a few that I can experiment with before the guests arrive
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Post #39 - December 23rd, 2011, 9:54 pmT Comp wrote:ronnie_suburban wrote:In between wrapping gifts, I'm making and drinking some Old Fashioneds here at Chez Suburban . . .
2.5+ ounces Ancient Ancient Age Bourbon
1 barspoon 2:1 demerara syrup
~15 drops of Velvet Tango Room bitters (thanks, Paulius!)
stir vigorously with ice, strain over large rock
Express lemon and orange oil
Sip, drain, repeat
Happy Holidays!
=R=
Nice!!! I think I know what I'll be offering pre-dinner Christmas day. Got everything to copy but those bitters but I've got a few that I can experiment with before the guests arrive .
Ango works just fine.
I made the last round with the Handy 2010 Antique and it was marvelous. Now, back to AAAge...many more gifts to wrap.
=R=By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself. --Kambei Shimada
Every human interaction is an opportunity for disappointment --RS
There's a horse loose in a hospital --JM
That don't impress me much --Shania Twain
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Post #40 - December 23rd, 2011, 11:12 pmGosh, Ronnie, I had gifts to wrap. Had I known the beverage options by you, I would have stopped by!
-Mary
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Post #41 - November 29th, 2012, 6:48 pmAfter a long day in the salt mines I asked myself, "Self, what sort of palliative shall I use as balm for these wounds?' Ah yes, it's that time of year isn't it:
