Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned is a cocktail, possibly the first drink to be called a cocktail. It is traditionally served in a short, round, 8–12 ounce tumbler-like glass, called an Old-Fashioned glass, named after the drink.

Some claim the first use of the specific name "Old Fashioned" was for a Bourbon whiskey cocktail in the 1880s, at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen’s club in Louisville, Kentucky. The recipe is said to have been invented by a bartender at that club, and popularized by a club member and bourbon distiller, Colonel James E. Pepper, who brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar in New York City. Others point out that the term was already in use before the Pendennis Club was founded.

An 1895 recipe specifies the following:

1. Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a whiskey glass
2. Add two dashes Angostura bitters
3. Add a small piece of ice
4. Add a piece lemon peel
5. Add one jigger (1.5 ounces or 44 mL) whiskey

Mix with small bar spoon and serve, leaving spoon in glass.