Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned is a cocktail.

Recipe:

• 2 oz. rye whiskey or Bourbon
• splash of simple syrup or 1 cube sugar and just enough water to dissolve it
• 2 dashes bitters
• 1/2 orange slice
• Old Fashioned glass

Muddle orange, sugar (or syrup) and bitters together

Fill glass with ice and add whiskey

Garnish with maraschino

Most modern recipes top off an Old Fashioned cocktail with soda water. Purists decry this practice, and insist that soda water is never added to a true Old Fashioned cocktail.

An 1895 recipe specifies the following: Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a whiskey-glass; add two dashes Angostura bitters, a small piece ice, a piece lemon-peel, one jigger whiskey. Mix with small bar-spoon and serve, leaving spoon in glass.

Renewing an Old Fashion discusses the history of this cocktail in detail, specifically focusing on the issue of whether to add soda water to the cocktail or not.

See also the Wikipedia Cocktail Guide.