Tired of co*cktail recipes that call for expensive, obscure bottles and fancy-pants techniques? We got you. Welcome to Happy Hour with Al, a monthly column where Al Culliton, Basically's resident bartender, sets you up to get the most bang for your booze with the fewest possible bottles.
Okay, let’s say you’ve been invited to a party. The host says to “bring something to drink.” That’s pretty broad isn’t it? You’re probably going to default to wine. It’s easy, and who doesn’t love wine? But I’ve got a better idea, and it’s sure to make you the Party Hero you’ve always known you could be. You’re going to bring a bottle full of co*cktails.
The benefits of such a thing are many: You can do it ahead of time, you don’t have to stir or shake anything to order—you just pour the co*cktail from a bottle—and you don’t have to go overboard and bring a whole bar set up with you.
Any stirred drink can easily be turned into a bottle of co*cktails—think Manhattans, martinis, and the like. But I’d like to draw your attention to a drink so elemental, so downright American that you’ll be hard-pressed to come across someone who will refuse it. That drink, my friends, is the old-fashioned.
The old-fashioned was originally known as the Whiskey co*cktail because, well, at one point it was actually new-fashioned. It didn’t get its new old-fashioned name until the late 19th century, when it underwent a resurgence in popularity.
The old-fashioned is an archetypal co*cktail, and actually follows to the letter what is purported to be the first published definition of co*cktail from 1806: just booze, sugar, bitters, and water. Typically it’s comprised of either rye whiskey or bourbon with a sugar cube or simple syrup, bitters, and ice.
