The classic Old Fashioned

This is my favorite drink. I am a whiskey/bourbon girl, and you may not be, but this drink is worth a shot no matter what.

This recipe is taken from the magazine Lucky Peach Issue 2, and the recipe is by Julian Van Winkle.

Ingredients for one cocktail
4 oz high quality bourbon
3 dashes  orange bitters (Regan's Orange Bitters is recommended)
1 cocktail napkin
1 cube raw sugar
1 half-inch thick slice of orange cut in half to make a half-moon (with rind)

Put a paper napkin across the top of a cocktail glass and set the sugar cute on top of it. Hit the cube with three dashes of orange bitters and let it soak in, allowing the napkin to absorb the excess.

Drop the cube in the glass and discard the napkin. Add the orange slice and use a bar spoon to muddle the flesh—not the rind and the pith—into the bitters-soaked sugar cube. Take your time.

When the sugar and the flesh or the orange are one with each other, add ice and 4 ounces of bourbon. Stir and serve.

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Now let me tell you, this is one STIFF drink. My suggestion is to add some extra large ice cubes (like these) because the secret is that the surface of the ice should cool it down fast, but not melt fast and dilute it. We personally add a merischino cherry because that's what they do at my favorite Manhattan bar Angel's Share, which I'm going to next week with my friends and perhaps will have to write a whole post about it.

Photo courtesy me.