2. The Old Fashioned: The Balance

Online School of Cocktailory

(aka: how to gussy up survival-quarantine-drinking on the couch in our pajamas) #alonetogether

Section 101: The Old-Fashioned

Apparently balance in this case means sugar, who knew More sweetener obvs makes your drink sweet, but just a smidge will calm the rough edges of taking straight whiskey shots like last week (woo boy!) They call this ingredient an amplifier. It’s meant to enhance the core ingredient’s flavors by adding just a little, not to drown it. Similar to cooking if you throw a steak or vegetable on a hot pan and then eat it, it’ll probably be boring but fine. But you add a little fat and salt and throw it on the bbq, it’s still a steak, but now everything about it tastes amplified. That’s our goal with sweeteners. But add too much and we just ruined dinner.

The original Old Fashioned calls for 1 muddled sugar cube, but times have changed, and waiting for a sugar cube to break down is not something anyone has patience for. Nowadays there are uncountable bottles of sugary cocktail additives, but they are all some version of a regular simple syrup: 50/50 sugar water blend usually with a flavor added. Think fruit juice, cola, grenadine or maraschino, grand marnier, benedictine, schnapps, demerara syrup, st. germaine, madeira, brandy, “margarita mix” and the like.

The assignment this week is to stir on ice: 2 oz. of your new favorite whiskey. Take a taste. Then add 1 teaspoon of something sweet like the items listed above and taste again. See if the whiskey has mellowed out or if a rye has more obvious flavors. Add a second teaspoon of the same sweetener of choice, stir, and see if the flavors change. Is your drink more or less enjoyable now? Finally add a third teaspoon of sweetener. We’re up to 1/2 an oz. of syrup now which is typically the max called for in an Old Fashioned, but we’ve also been drinking some, so the end of our experiment should show how too much sugar starts to take away from the whiskey, rather than amplifying it. Play around with different combos and comment below with your favorites for the rest of us to try!

For our non-alcoholic friends and family playing along, try the lemonade game. In a tall glass with ice add 1 cup water, 2 oz. of 100% lemon and/or lime juice, and taste. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar or equivalent of sugar-free sweetener you use, stir, and see how the flavor calms. As you add more sweetener the citrus flavor will almost go away entirely as it’s smothered in sugar.

In cocktails as with everything else, we just want to find the balance point, where everything is calm, and no one’s fighting.

Cheers