What Exactly is an Old Fashioned? (2024)

FAQs

What does an Old Fashioned contain? ›

In fact, it's Jack's favorite drink, so we always keep old fashioned ingredients on hand. They're super simple: whiskey (Jack likes rye), Angostura Bitters, a little sugar, ice, and an orange twist for garnish.

The Old Fashioned is arguably the most well-known whiskey co*cktail in the world. Essentially just a slug of bourbon that's been lightly sweetened with sugar and modified with a couple dashes of bitters, it's dead simple to make, but within this basic template is a world of opinions and flavor.

The most popular of the in-vogue "old-fashioned" co*cktails were made with whiskey, according to a Chicago barman, quoted in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1882, with rye being more popular than Bourbon. The recipe he describes is a similar combination of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar of seventy-six years earlier.