Hi! I'm Kyle Ingham from The Distilled Man.
And up next I'm going to show you how to
make one of my favorite cocktails,
the old-fashioned.
Don't mind if I do.
The old-fashioned is one of my favorite cocktails
and its really one of the classic cocktails.
and you might have guessed that by the name: old fashioned,
but it's not just old like Madmen old it's like
Ben Franklin old.
So, this drink can definitely traced back to the 1800s,
where actually it's rumored to have been a breakfast drink.
Which sounds crazy, but if you think
about it, you know, if the average life
expectancy was only 43 today.
You'd probably drink a little bit of booze
with your muesli also.
But, the drink can
actually be traced back even further
than that some say to the 1700s,
when the practice of, you know,
having these medicinal tinctures started
emerging, and people decided,
"Well, you know what, this stuff tastes kind of crappy.
It's a lot better when I mix it with booze."
And that's the funny thing about
the recipe too, is that it's so simple.
It really is at the end of the day
a little bit of rye or bourbon, a little bit of bitters
and a little bit of sweetness.
Today what I'm going to use is some rye,
some bitters,
sugar,
soda water
and we're going to use lemon peels garnish,
because i like to do it super simple.
So, for the sweetening element in the
old-fashioned people use various things,
a lot of people use sugar or sugar cubes
but I'm actually going to use simple
syrup in this recipe because i think it
makes your life a little bit easier in
terms of mixing everything together.
To make simple syrup, you just do
equal parts sugar and equal parts water.
And just shake it up.
A lot of people think that you need to actually cook it
over the stove but that's that's not even
necessary. I've spoken to a lot of
bartenders who just say,
you know what, just go and shake it up.
Shake it vigorously and after a while it will turn into a solution.
So, to start the drink the first thing I'm actually going to do
is I'm going to add in about three dashes of bitters
or so and honestly,
in my opinion, it's hard to use too many bitters.
I really like the taste, you know,
tastes like Christmas to me.
Add a little bit of simple syrup, about a teaspoon or so.
Then just add a splash of soda.
And then what you want to do is muddle
those 3 ingredients together
and it's going to kind of foam up a little bit and mix together.
Next you're going to add some ice. And actually I love these big square pieces of ice, big blocks.
The bigger your ice cubes theoretically the slower it's going to melt.
So, you're gonna get less sort of
residual water from the ice. And in a drink
like this where you really do want to taste the alcohol,
I think it's nice to have a larger cube.
And then I'm going to add about 2 ounces of rye.
And again you can use bourbon in this recipe if you want.
Traditionally the drink was made with rye
just because it was more available back in the 1800s.
But you can really use either one, I just prefer rye,
because it's a little bit spicier.
Not quite as sweet as bourbon, so I think
it's a nice balance to the sweetness and the bitters.
Then you mix that up.
At this point I'm going to take a little sliver of lemon peel.
And what I like to do is,
kind of rub that around the rim of the glass.
And what's great about this is you get a
little bit of flavor of the lemon.
But it also engages your smell too,
before you even take a drink of the drink you actually
get a nice lemony scent.
And I think that really improves the experience in my opinion
That's good!
So, that's how you make an old-fashioned.
Thanks again for watching.
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Thanks again for watching and until next time.