Old Fashioned

The old fashioned is a cocktail made from whiskey, sugar, aromatic bitters and a twist of citrus peel, stirred with ice, and is regarded as one of the oldest and simplest defined cocktail recipes still in common use. Its name reflects that, as more elaborate and inventive cocktails proliferated in American bars during the nineteenth century, drinkers who preferred this simpler spirit, sugar and bitters combination began asking for it made the old fashioned way, and the name stuck as the drink's own title. The old fashioned is traditionally credited with helping establish the basic template, a spirit sweetened and balanced with bitters, that much of later cocktail making built on.