Drink · 4 min · 1 glass
Old Fashioned
Whiskey, sugar, bitters and time. The stir is the recipe: about thirty seconds, until the glass frosts and it stops tasting hot.
The sheet · 1 glass · 4 min
easyWhy tonight. Whiskey, sugar, bitters and time. The stir is the recipe: about thirty seconds, until the glass frosts and it stops tasting hot.
What it needs
Nothing confirmed on your shelf yet — this list is the whole ask.
- bourbon
- sugar
- angostura
Good if you have them, fine if you do not: orange.
Method
- Sugar or syrup in the glass with two dashes of Angostura. Stir to dissolve.
- Add bourbon and ice. Stir until the drink is cold and slightly diluted.
- Citrus peel if you have it. Express the oil over the glass.
An educational pour, not a reprint of a licensed spec. No allergen or alcohol-safety claim.
Cook or pour it, then edit the shelf if you emptied a bottle or used the last of something.
Why each of these is on the list
What the ingredients are actually doing
- bourbon
- Corn-sweet and vanilla-heavy from new oak, so it takes bitterness and citrus without being flattened.
- sugar
- Not just sweetness — it balances acid and bitterness, which is why a sour drink and a tomato sauce both want a little.
- angostura
- Bitters are seasoning for a drink — the salt of the bar.
Missing one of them? The substitutions are written against those jobs rather than against a chart, so they say what each replacement costs this dish in particular.
Cooks from the same box
If you bought for this, you can already make these
Shares bourbon, sugar, angostura
Vanilla Old Fashioned
Old Fashioned bones, a drop of vanilla. Orange peel. The vanilla should round the oak, not turn it into a candle. Don't use extract by the teaspoon.
Shares sugar, angostura
Champagne cocktail
A sugar cube soaked in bitters, then sparkling wine over it. The cube fizzes the whole time, which is half the pleasure.
Shares bourbon, angostura
Manhattan
Two parts whiskey to one vermouth, stirred cold. The vermouth is a fresh ingredient and the bottle that has been open a year is why yours is wrong.
Shares bourbon, angostura
Bourbon coffee
Bourbon in place of vodka, so the drink has a spine. Bitters keep the coffee liqueur from turning it into pudding.
Next
Cook it, then tell the shelf what you used.
The ranking is only as honest as the shelf behind it. Empty the cream, and everything that leaned on cream should stop being offered.