Experiencing a Southern Style, Old-Fashioned tonic in a brand new light
At the time, let’s say the 1800’s to the 1860’s, cocktails were generally considered a morning drink. In other words, “a hair of the dog that bit you.” Much like morphine and other misunderstood chemicals at the time, alcohol was, namely, (and for most of human history) considered medicinal.
That’s not to say they didn’t enjoy their medicine from time to time, in fact, I’m sure some still consider it curative; however, it’s likely an emotional sort of pain, not physical.
“A drop of gin was once advised to ward off the plague, a glug of wine to ‘defend the body from corruption’ and a sip of absinthe to cure the body of roundworms.” —Dr. Smitha Mundasad
All this to say, in the 1800’s, we were just getting around to naming things, let alone mixing and muddling our hearts away. Indeed, it was a May 13th issue of The Balance and Columbian Repository in 1806, Hudson, New York which would first define the ubiquitous term: “Cock tail, then, is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.”
Now, fast forward 87 years and we have the first use of the term, Old-Fashioned, to describe a particular cocktail, published in the Chicago Tribune on May 14, 1893: “The old-fashioned cocktail affected by Southern men differs in its composition in various cities.”
And there you have it; the Old-Fashioned is born again. Our lexicon has now expanded to include the stubborn tradition of drinking bitter, citrus-sweet rye. We now have a sipping cocktail that is estranged, yet at the same time, unchanged from its origins.
Aside from a boisterous debate concerning the muddling of fruits in addition to simple bitters, the concept has remained relatively static over the years. The only real difference being the change in time, from morning to evening, and our respective reasoning. That is to say, we use it to get drunk and not to do away with the brown bottle flu.
Yet, time always has a way of well, muddling things? Take our own local Alchemy Bar, located on the tenth floor of the Westin Hotel. You won’t find beer or wine here but an experience unique to cocktails.
As Jon Gwaltney, a local mixologist at the Alchemy, reaches for his muddler and adjusts the ingredients of your tumbler-glass appropriately, a sense of care and healing accompanies your drink and is well worth the money.
Likewise, Jon Gwaltney now has the pleasure of infusing your drink with hickory-smoked flavor. You now have a tonic for what ails you and an aromatic touch which really takes the edge off.
Gwaltney achieves this with the use of a smoke gun; hickory-smoked chips of wood are ignited and pulled into the chamber that houses your cocktail. Anything from an Old-Fashioned to a traditional Manhattan are fair game. For this reason, Gwaltney is a real magician behind the bar. Given that the Alchemy is a high-volume setting for even the most experienced bartender, Gwaltney not only keeps up but he does so with style and precision.
Therefore, to produce a rather tedious set of cocktails, further lengthened by the smoking process, takes skill. For Gwaltney, “It’s getting all the right measurements. In order to make the perfect cocktail, all you need is time.”
So, visit Alchemy anytime and let the atmosphere and alcohol do the talking for me. You might not be able to smoke here but you can smoke your whiskey. As your cocktail billows and wisps through the air, reserving a mild-smoky flavor, you’ll realize, my Old-Fashioned is not so Old-Fashioned—and I like it.
Old-Fashioned
- 1.5 oz. Bourbon or Rye whiskey
- 2 dashes Angostura Bitters
- 1 sugar cube
- Few dashes plain water
- A muddler to dissolve the sugar
Place sugar cube in old-fashioned glass and saturate with bitters, add a dash of plain water.
Muddle until dissolved. Fill the glass with ice cubes and add whiskey. Garnish with orange slice and a cocktail cherry.