Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned was unknown to me until recently. My friend  Niklas showed me the simplicity of the cocktail and so I got interested.
First I started looking up the history of this cocktail as it was called "the mother of all cocktail". The Old Fashioned became very popular in the United States during the Prohibition. The recipe of the cocktail already existed before the Prohibition but its popularity increased in small bars who were serving illegal alcohol. During this time there were severe penalties for consuming, transporting, brewing or serving alcohol.

The alcohol served in these bars were not the most tasty beverages. In order to sell the drinks, bartenders had to show their creativity. So they started mixing their drinks with fruitjuices and other non-alcoholic drinks. And so (ironically during the Prohibition) the popularity of cocktails, and especially the Old Fashioned was born.

The first recipe I tried was from Manuel Wouters. The cocktail was easy to make but while drinking it I found the taste of orange too strong. I muddled the sugar on the lemon and the orangepeel along with 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters. The aroma rising from the glass while muddling was amazing. I had no idea there was this much flavour in the peel. While making the cocktail I was really excited because of the different smells coming out of my glass. But when finished, I found the orange dominating the drink.

So for my next try I only checked the history books (read wikipedia) a bit. The original recipe told me to muddle the sugar and the bitters only on the lemon peel and adding the orange at the end. Because the orange was not muddled in the glass along with the lemon, sugar and Angostura, it does not dominate he cocktail, but there is a delicate hint of it.

My recipe for the Old Fashioned:

1 lemon peel
1 orange peel
1 barspoon of sugar
2 Dashes of Angostura
5 cl Bourbon
1 cl of simple syrup
sodawater
ice cubes

Muddle the lemon peel, the Angostura in a tumbler glass with the back of a barspoon. Add a little bit of soda water to dissolve the sugar. Add a few ice cubes and the bourbon and stir. add the last ice cubes, the syrup and the orange peel and stir once more.

Cheers!