Welcome back, friends - it's Anders.
Caution: this video contains fire.
If you are sensitive to images of flames,
viewer discretion advised.
Today we're making a Smoked Maple Old Fashioned.
What makes an Old Fashioned is spirit, bitters, sugar, and water.
So I'm going to incorporate all those things.
Now when you look at this recipe you're going to say, "Hey, you're not putting water in there."
But I'm using ice, and that ice will melt, and melted ice is water.
Little secret - pretty much every cocktail has water as an ingredient
in the form of ice that has melted.
Today's video is sponsored by..
..Elijah Craig!
Who is celebrating Old Fashioned Week by raising funds for the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation.
And you can help them by making an Old Fashioned, taking a picture, and posting it on Instagram
using the hashtag Old Fashioned Week.
Then tag Elijah Craig, and for every post they will donate five dollars to the cause -
up to a hundred thousand dollars.
That's a lot of Old Fashioneds.
I'm gonna make one -
you should too!
If you're new to the channel, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes,
and let's go make the Smoked Maple Old Fashioned.
To the bar.
[intro music]
Elijah Craig is credited with being the first to char the inside of his oak barrels to age his bourbon.
And it has since become common practice. In fact, not just common practice, but this is a rule.
All bourbon has to be aged in newly charred American oak barrels.
What charring the wood does - it pulls flavors out of the wood like brown sugar, and vanilla, and spice.
All the good things about bourbon.
Let me show you.
This is a piece of a barrel.
Specifically the head of a barrel, also called a header, which is the top and bottom of the barrel.
The curved sides - on the sides - are the staves. But this is from the top, or bottom.
And as you can see, it's charred.
When you age the bourbon in these barrels, the bourbon moves in and out of the wood.
And it all depends on the temperature, so this is why Kentucky is such a great place to age bourbon -
because in the winters it gets rather cold, in the summers it gets rather warm.
That variation of temperatures pulls flavors from the wood. Makes the bourbon really good.
But at the same time, flavors from the bourbon go into the wood.
You can see why this is very valuable to me.
I will be using this to smoke the glass for my Smoked Maple Old Fashioned.
And of course you don't need a piece of a bourbon barrel to do this.
There are other methods, and I will leave links in the description down below
so you can smoke it however you want, but this is how I'm doing it.
And we get to play with fire.
Nope! I shouldn't say that.
You don't play with fire - this is serious stuff.
Now the booze.
For this recipe, we are gonna need Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon,
maple syrup,
and black walnut bitters.
Elijah Craig is gonna be outstanding in this drink. This is a full flavored, but smooth bourbon.
Really nice spice, subtle smokiness, it's great on its own and it's good in a mixed cocktail.
As for the syrup - maple syrup. How they classify it is based on color.
And the darker the color, the more mapley the flavor.
So I've got a -
I'm not a maple syrup expert.
I'm gonna call this dark amber.
It's gonna give us a nice maple flavor.
As for the bitters, this is black walnut bitters, and it's gonna be great in this drink.
I know those of you who have been watching my videos know that I've been stubborn when it comes to dasher bottles.
Really no reason other than I am stuck in my ways, but I'm trying to expand that.
I'm trying to grow as a human.
So let's build!
First, let's add the bourbon.
We'll do two ounces of Elijah Craig Small Batch,
one quarter of an ounce of maple syrup,
and then three dashes of the black walnut bitters.
Before we add ice and start chilling and diluting this cocktail,
we are going to torch our barrel head.
To protect my valuable bar top.
Please be very careful when we do this.
Be prepared. Be smart.
And a glass.
[excited laughter]
All right, I'm gonna get it burnt,
and then cover it with the glass.
Now I'm just gonna let this sit here, and we can add ice and stir. About 30 seconds.
Smells good in here.
That's probably good.
Get your ice ready, and then gently - the key word is "gently" - roll the glass over, and drop the ice right in.
Then we can strain the cocktail right on top. It wants to push that smoke out.
I'm also going to add a little bit of orange oil on top. Hit the sides, grab your favorite cocktail cherry, set it right on the side.
There it is.
The Smoked Maple Old Fashioned.
Cheers!
Ooh that's good!
The sweet smoke and orange on the nose, nice bold bourbon, richness from the maple syrup,
and then a slight walnut bitterness on end.
This is like camping -
you wake up in the morning, you still smell like the campfire from the night before,
and you have pancakes!
Oooh!
Yeah.
Go to Instagram, tag Elijah Craig, use the hashtag Old Fashioned Week.
Help raise money for restaurant workers, and we can all enjoy a good cocktail for a great cause.
Happy Old Fashioned Week, everybody!
Cheers!
Like and subscribe.
I'll see you next time.
And ahh..
Odh that notification bell's still there, so..
..might as well hit that.
[music fades]