![]() It could be argued that more young adults are drinking Old-Fashioneds today than at any point in history. It helps that these people are, by and large, young, as young people tend to get what they want. They’re demanding a better Old-Fashioned, and they’re getting it. Quality abounds.Īnd people aren’t settling. But the point is, you don’t have to settle for it anymore. Yes, you’ll still get the lazy 1950s version in many bars - most bars, really. Furthermore, nobody’s spraying any soda water on top of the drink. And the fruit element has been cut back to an orange twist or lemon twist, or both (called “rabbit ears”), garnishes that enhance and amplify the flavors in the whiskey but don’t muddy the appearance of the cocktail. The ice in the best craft cocktail bars is limited to a single, crystalline cube, which both beautifies the drink and preserves its flavor, saving the contents from premature dilution. The whiskey is better sometimes it’s rye, as it was back in the late 1800s, and often it’s of a higher proof. Over the past decade, that Old-Fashioned has enjoyed a glow-up, as the kids say. But the whiskey used may not have been top shelf, the ice was substandard, and you had to contend with a garnish of orange slice and traffic-light-red maraschino cherry - “the garbage,” as purists called it. You could buy one anywhere, and every bartender knew how to make a decent one. Back then, the drink was common and plentiful. This is a glorious time to be an Old-Fashioned drinker, even more so than during the postwar days. You can get a close copy of that 225-year-old drink today in any bar or restaurant you care to enter. It was a simple composition, and thus a sturdy one - one built to last. In a century’s time, we would come to refer to all mixed drinks as cocktails, but back in 1806, when the term was first defined in print, a cocktail meant a specific, and rather minor, category of alcoholic beverage, one composed of spirit, water, sugar and bitters. ![]() The potions went by various names: flips, slings, sours, juleps, cobblers, fixes, fizzes, bucks and cocktails. And, because this wasn’t England, because we were all proud individuals deserving of our own special serving, we didn’t deposit those mixtures in a punch bowl. We took what the rest of the world had to offer - liquor, bitters, wine, fruit, sugar, eggs, milk, what have you - and tossed them together in various combinations. ![]() ![]() Cocktails are the American invention that America forgets to crow about. And, in bars across the nation, people were drinking cocktails. The clubs in Chicago, New Orleans and New York City pulsated with the bebop sounds of jazz greats in the making Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and Bill Evans. On Broadway, the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein, and Lerner and Loewe were, song by song, contributing a fat new volume to the American songbook. The surest illustration of this is that all three of the country’s greatest contributions to world civilization were in full flower. The zenith of American culture arrived in the two decades following World War II. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |