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Brian, who is the coolest guy on television, ever?
Well, it's gotta be Don Draper, right? >> "It's Don Draper!"
Yes! Good answer!
I was really afraid you were gonna say Gilligan, and I was gonna say, "Okay, fine..."
[modulated robot voice] The Modern Rogue makes an Old Fashioned.
When you talk about a Manhattan, I vaguely understand it.
Certainly a martini, it makes sense.
"Old Fashioned," you might as well say, "Old Wizardry!"
Fortunately, we have a wizard here to tell us!
Trever at the Steampunk Saloon!
Trever, tell us about the Old Fashioned!
The Old Fashioned has been a staple
of the bar community for years.
Is it bad for me to confess that I don't know that I've ever had an Old Fashioned?
It's one of the predecessors of all cocktails.
Way back in the 19th Century, whiskey drinks were
whiskey, sugar, bitters, and water.
That was just a whiskey cocktail, but they started spicing them up.
Maybe somebody will add a little curaçao--
Then one day someone said, "Just give it to me old fashioned."
Walk me through this, Trever! >> Okay.
You're gonna start out with a sugar cube.
A lot of bars have started using like a brown sugar cube, or a molasses sugar cube.
We're gonna drop that in there,
and we're going to dash this with--depending on how you like the drink--but we're going to use
three to four dashes of Angostura bitters.
One, two, three, four.
And you really want a good coating on that sugar.
This is, uh, Angostura aromatic bitters. >> Yes.
You're going to see this is just about any bar you go to. This is the Coke-brand of bitters.
Now that it's sat there for a minute, we're gonna muddle this.
And you want to really get it good and mashed up with that bitters.
>> Brian: How do you know when you're done?
Because if I was doing this, I would keep mashing
until everything was a frothy, foamy paste,
but I'm guessing that's not what you want.
Well, when you're using a sugar cube like this, you can really start to feel it break underneath your muddler.
You want to leave just a little bit, because this'll add texture to the drink.
When the sugar mixes with the bourbon. >> Brian: Okay.
We're going to put an orange swath in here.
This is really gonna add a lot of flavor to the drink.
And this is just a simple, you know, fruit peeler.
We're going to get the oils out of this swath.
You just kind of hold it like this.
>> Brian: Got it.
And then some citrus kinda shot off, there?
So you have a fresh peel.
We have very little pith. This is the white part of the fruit that you don't wanna eat.
See, I had always thought that you put actual orange in there, and not part of the rind itself.
Some of the best flavor of the orange is actually in the rind.
'Cause of the oils, right? Yeah.
And what you can do is, especially the fresh ones, is when you break it over...
>> Brian: You can see it! You can see it bursting out!
>> Trever: And that really adds flavor to your drink.
You can take a swath like this, go around the rim,
and that's going to add that flavor the entire time.
Some bartenders will throw this out. It looks good in the drink.
We're gonna put this in there, we're gonna muddle this again.
And all you have to do when you're muddling the actual swath? You're just pushing the oils out.
You don't need to kill it.
There's no benefit to breaking it up into a paste or a mush or a pulp?
No, not at all. That's the last thing you really want to do.
Because it can overtake the drink, and you want to taste that booze.
Some people will say that this is sacrilegious, some people will say that this is the way it's done.
But I always add soda water to my Old Fashioned.
This is really going to bring out the bitters and the orange, and it's gonna really connect it all.
And you can see when I added that soda water, how it frothed up like that?
It really took in the bitters and the orange, and really just put it together like a glue.
>> Jason: This is turning into a chemistry experiment, so you're speaking Brian's language.
>> Brian: That's right!
This may sound disgusting,
you can actually take a sip of that right now and it would be very, very flavorful.
So far it's just bitters... >> soda water, and orange.
With a little bit of sugar.
It's like an orangey-licorice!
It's not bad at all!
>> Would you like to try it, too? >> Yeah!
>> Trever: For a good Old Fashioned, you just need a good base!
>> Brian: Not--not so boozy, but definitely-- >> It's tasty.
Yeah!
Now...
We just need our whiskey!
>> Jason: What kind of whiskey?
We're using a rye today. Traditionally, Old Fashioned was made with rye.
It varies from era, it varies from bar to bar.
But I like a good rye, because it has more of a bitter flavor.
Typically in an Old Fashioned, you're going to have two to two and a half ounces.
We're going to do just a standard two ounce pour with our jigger.
Get some more ice here. [ice scraping]
And we're going to stir this drink.
We're not going to give this a lot of rotation because we don't have really good ice.
Yup.
And, when you use ice like this, it can dilute too quickly.
So you want to use a little bit less ice here, but you still want the glass to be chilled.
A lot of people, when they're trying to make a really fancy Old Fashioned
they'll use one of the spherical--
>> One of those like, eight balls of ice. >> Exactly.
And that is one of the best ways to serve it,
but, you just don't wanna dilute the drink too much.
Now, some people will say that you shouldn't put a cherry in an Old Fashioned.
I like a little bit of a nicer cherry, like a black cherry.
I like the oils that come off with it, because I really think it compliments not only the orange, but the rye whiskey.
So we're just going to drop that in right in here.
All right, so when you drink this, what are the notes you should be expecting?
You're going to have citrus, and earthy, smokey tones from the whiskey.
>> All right, here we go. >> Have a sip.
Wow!
Uh, try this!
It's like, almost a mossy kind of--like a rich forest-y kind of flavor!
That was your first sip of an Old Fashioned?
>> Brian: Yeah!
You've just taken your first step into a larger world.
[stammering] I'm so excited, dude!
Do you feel like Don Draper?
I do!
Yeah, this is delicious!
>> Brian: That is really good!
All right, so we made themodernrogue.com in about 15 minutes using Squarespace.
What changed?
Someone much more capable than us got their hands on it and used the already existing tools
that we had access to and made us look like chumps!
>> Brian: This is the thing, like, we look like we knew what we were doing,
we put a martini glass on there, we turn around for 20 minutes
Brandt [editor] puts up this amazing video-intro.
All of a sudden, I'm ready to send this to every corporate booker in America for our live stage show--
by the way, we need to make a live stage show.
Oh, we do.
Two men enter, one man leaves! [laughs]
Yeah! I was about to say,
turns into a snuff film!
Up on stage...
This is incredible! I have seen people spend
$200,000 on sites that don't look as good as this.
I know that's no exaggeration.
Right now themodernrogue.com only has two things:
It's got a wicked-ass, awesome splash page, and it's got links to the episodes.
But I feel like this can be a whole ecosystem!
I feel like out there, the fans have a whole list of things they would like to see on this site!
I want to know what they are! I say they should post them down in the comments below!
And if they have something they want to see,
maybe they can implement it in their own Modern Rogue fan site.
Let's do this, anybody who's created a website with Squarespace that they're extremely proud of--
I don't care if it's for their own band or a fan site for the Modern Rogue (although that would be pretty badass)
--post it down in the comments below, and we'll pick our favorite and we'll feature it right here on the show.
How about that? Is that a pinky promise? >> I like it! Yes, let's do it!
Pinky promise!
All they have to do is head on over to squarespace.com/rogue,
they can start their free trial today,
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Yes! And you can't use "rouge," because you won't get anything off.
I mean, except for very rosy cheeks!
>> You'll get rosy cheeks. >> You--you'll look lovely!
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