While watching the bartender make an Old Fashioned at the newly opened Kirkwood Lounge (formerly Azalea), it was obvious that there are many ways to mix an Old Fashioned cocktail. The bartender and Sean Wilson go out of their way to put a unique twist on a lot of the ingredients for common cocktails, so if you are looking for traditional recipes then maybe the new Kirkwood Lounge is not the place to go. But you would lose out on a lot of the fun in ordering cocktails. Nothing is set in stone. But this did spur me to do some research on making the “Old Fashioned.” After I congratulated myself with having found what I assumed to be the oldest printed recipe for an Old Fashioned I found that someone had beaten me to the punch with a Wikipedia entry. Anyway, here is the oldest recipe found to date:
Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a whiskey-glass. Add two dashes Angostura bitters, a small piece ice, a piece lemon-peel, one jigger whiskey. Mix with a small bar spoon and serve, leaving spoon in the glass.
p. 43, Modern American Drinks: How to mix and serve all kinds of cups and drinks, by George J. Kappeler, Saalfield Publishing Co. Copyright, 1895.
A very similar recipe appears in the October 30, 1944 issue of Life Magazine in an ad by Four Roses Whiskey and it has a bit more detail:
½ lump sugar
1 ½ oz. whiskey
2 dashes of bitters
1 twist of lemon peel.
Muddle sugar, bitters and lemon peel with a little water in an Old-Fashioned glass. Add ice cubes. Then pour in whiskey and stir.
This Four Roses Whiskey recipe is probably about as close to an authentic recipe with actual measurements as you will find. Some say that the Old Fashioned recipe started to go off the rails after Prohibition. Here is the first post-Prohibition recipe that I could find:
Now make what is really and old-fashioned cocktail. Sugar water, a dash of Angostura bitters, a few of he whisky-soaked mint leaves crushed with a muddler. Then a drink of the mint-flavored whisky. Ice and stir, add in a slice of lemon, a slice of orange and a cherry.
p. 199, Along the wine trail. An anthology of wines and spirits G. Selmer Fougner, 1935.
I do not know where the mint comes from. Prohibition did introduce to the public a lot of really poorly made whiskeys and perhaps the mint was a necessary introduction to hide some bad taste. In fact, Gin took off during prohibition because the herbs could hide some of the worst attributes of a poorly made spirit.
I will get the basics out of the way. Tumea and Sons Italian Restaurant and Lounge is actually of fairly recent vintage, having been established in 1998. Not being a southsider, I had just assumed that it had been around for a long time as it does not have that shiny new look. But when i think about, it I can’t recall visiting the place before 1998, so I’ll take what they post on the website as gospel. I just assumed that I had not heard about it or had not driven by the place because it is hard to find. I can never find the place. It is tucked away in the southeast side bottoms just across from the ballpark. The actual address is 1501 Southeast 1st Street if you want (or need) to plug it into the GPS.
Anyway, about the place. It was pretty well packed when we visited. There were cops, firefighters, a lawyer lobbying a well-known City of Des Moines politico, a table of what looked like a bunch of middle managers from a plumbing company and a parking lot full of shiny Cadillacs and Benzes. So, it obviously gets the vote from the City of Des Moines establishment.
The walls are covered with family photos, a crucifix or two, some posters of Italy, and other assorted things. The wall accoutrements looked like they were authentic and not grabbed off of an antique floor like you see in Italian chains like Buca di Beppo.
Tumea Manicotti
So, we were duly warned while discussing the menu NOT to try the manicotti with vegetables that day. Something about the mushrooms not being up to snuff. I like it when I get good directions on what not to get. So, I ordered the manicotti with cheese. My partner ordered the Penne Salsiccia. I didn’t get the impression that the pasta in either dish was scratch made, but maybe I just didn’t notice. The sauces were very tasty and sweet and the manicotti was full of cheese as promised. The Penne Salsiccia came with ground sausage (I think it was Graziano sausage, some of which can be hot by itself) and red peppers in red sauce and butter wth Romano cheese. The sausage and red peppers made it quite hot. Based on the clientele and the food I tried I would say that this is honest Italian food consistently prepared.
The prices were a bit high for a lunch but fair for the amount of food that was served. If you are hungry you get your money’s worth. The dinner prices for the meat plates are higher as well but when I’ve had a full dinner meal you get supplied with ample amounts of food for the price — far more than any normal human can consume. The place brings out the white table cloth and lowers the lights for dinner to create a more sophisticated atmosphere, which also helps justify the higher dinner price. Prices for pasta dishes are very reasonable for dinner.
Nomad styles itself as the upscale lounge d’jour of the Old Market. They’ve done a really phenomenal job of kitting the place out with great art, furniture, and a DJ tower above the bar. They routinely curate a gallery of art by local artists, usually in a certain graffiti/tattoo style that vibes well with the decor. It’s on the first floor of the Old Market Lofts, so it has huge high ceilings and gigantic wooden columns. Despite literally being a warehouse, the clever use of curtains and spot lighting manages to create an intimate and muted feel. Nomad tops my charts as far as upscale lounge settings go.
A word of warning: don’t go here if you don’t want a cocktail. There’s a depressingly small selection of beer and wine, all of which will break your bank. Something like $5-6 for a bottle of Miller Lite is the cheapest it comes.
I’ll never understand the horror that seems to grip owners of upscale lounges everywhere when it comes to beer. Why can’t they serve great beer along with great cocktails? Urban Wine manages to have a small selection of some tremendous Belgian and Trappist beer on tap. I’m fine with charging $5 for a Miller as it generally keeps out the Wooo! Crowd*, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a selection of least a few decent beers, even in bottles.
That being said, the cocktails are fine and the bartenders are the usual collection of humorless stoic professionals. They serve a big selection of fancy fizzy pink martinis and such, but expect your sour mix out of a gun. I recall once even having to list the ingredients for an Old Fashioned.
The English owner of Nomad is quite active in the community in a number of great ways. He helps sponsor the annual Omaha Fashion Week which can be a surprisingly spectacular event. It’s especially surprising that a town like Omaha can be host to a successful fashion week. Nomad also hosted a fixed-bike sprint competition thrown by local bike shop Greenstreet Cycles, which was great fun.
Because of my humble station, Nomad isn’t a place I go very often. I’ve been there much more often for special events than just an evening out, but it’s still a great place to go occasionally.
*The Wooo! Crowd is the people you see in certain establishments hoisting rice-beer in patented Widemouth Vortex Whatever bottles and shouting Wooo! as they stumble on top of one another in drunken, fitful delirium.
I’ve made the decision to try to get to all of the old-line Italian restaurants in Des Moines. I thought I knew the whole list until the Feb/March/April DSM Magazine posted a list of top restaurants in Des Moines and gave a short summary of what Chuck’s offered. I knew right then that I would have to check it out. I’ve probably driven by Chuck’s a hundred times or more and never had any idea it had been established by the Bisignano family or that it served authentic Calabrese-style entrees. I assumed that it was a Highland Park iceberg lettuce steak joint. After all, its not on the south or east side, so why would it be an Italian restaurant? Shows how much I know. According to Chuck’s website, http://chucksdesmoines.com, the restaurant was opened by the Bisignagano family in 1956. There is a good Des Moines Register article by Marc Hansen that provides some background on the place. The place features a number of separate dining rooms and a well-stocked bar.
The prices are incredibly low for the quality of food that is sold, though this is not a white tablecloth type of establishment (at least not the dining room we were in). I had the cavatelli with a large meatball. The cavatelli was, as advertised, scratch-made and it was absolutely fantastic. The pasta was thick and chewy, though in a good way. It was not the slimy thin stuff that you get in a box. I’d say that it is the best standard cavatelli I’ve had in a long time. The sauce was also prepared well and the meatball was, well, it was an Italian meatball. I also tried the ravioli and it, too, featured hand-made pasta, though it was prepared very thinly with a large amount of filling.
Service was a bit spotty in our particular dining room on a fairly busy night. Our service was friendly and competent, though I had to remind the waiter of one missed item (wine). In a subsequent visit we had no problem with service. The wine list is short, but has some solid selections and some nice Italian wines. My cocktail was served quickly (a “new style” Old Fashioned made with an orange slice, two cherries, Templeton Rye and, I believe, soda or tonic water in addition to the sugar and bitters). This is the first bar to offer Templeton Rye in a long time. (Better their Templeton Rye than my diminishing stock of Batch 2). The other diners in my room were having some trouble getting service, but they raved about the food anyway.
The cannoli that I tried for dessert was bigger and cheesier than, say the cannoli at Gusto.
A dinner for two cost about $55 and included wine, a cocktail, two entrees and one dessert. You can’t beat that price point for scratch-made authentic Calabrese-style Italian food, though you do have to put up with paper napkins and placemats.
In my second visit we were ending our dinner just as a band was setting up. I understand that Chucks is one of the best places to take in live music during the late dinner hour. I can also add that the bar appears to be well-stocked with all of the necessary ingredients for the usual drinks and cocktails.
I can’t think of a better way to taste a lot of different wines and beer than to go to the annual Des Moines Opera Wine and Food Showcase. This year’s showcase was held on Friday, February 18th at the Downtown Des Moines Marriott. The wine and beer selections seem to have expanded considerably. The crowd was also heavy. I’ll start with the wine.
The top wine find of the day was Hollen Family Vineyards. Argentinian wines were being pushed heavily by a lot of the distributors at the showcase and it is easy to get tired of the hit-or-miss nature of a lot of South American wines. I can tell you that with Hollen Family Vinyards it is all hits. Another side benefit here is that there is an Iowa connection as these Argentine wines are produced by Mike Hollen and his family. Mike Hollen is a Waterloo, Iowa orthodontist and restaurateur (CU Restaurant and The Cellar). I have to tell you that these wines are fantastic and are equal to or better than any under-$40 Bordeaux or California wines I’ve tried lately. They might be better than even more expensive wines, but that is a judgment that must be made by somebody with a more sophisticated palate than I own.
Hollen 2007 Don Giaroli Cab
Lets start with the 2007 “Don Giaroli” Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a wine that in my opinion combines the best of French and California wines. It has very nice tannins and the leather and earthy aroma that I miss in many California wines but that is frequently present in a good Bordeaux. It also has the fruit and a super smooth and tasty finish that California wines do so well. I will definitely be trying to find a more of these wines to buy. Hollen also makes a Cab without the “signature” of the Argentine winemaker but this 2007 Cabernet was also very good. It may not have been quite as smooth as the “Don Giaroli” but it was a very good Cab. All of the wine bottles are hand-marked with the bottle number and the bottling date (Euro-style of dating, I see).
"Hollen 2008 Syrah
The 2008 Syrah was also a fantastic wine if you want a Syrah that is truly jam-packed with jammy flavor. This was actually the first wine I tried from the selection offered by Hollen Family Vineyards and it was the wine that told me that this was a label worth checking into more. It was nice to try a fruit-heavy wine that was not also a super sweet wine. This bottle proves that it is possible to keep the flavor without loading a wine down with sugars.
I asked Mike Hollen how he made these wines. He told me that the grapes are selectively picked in the field and that they only use the middle crush for the juice in order to avoid bitterness. Then, the product is then kept under climate-controlled conditions. The wines are grown in Argentina’s Mendoza province and processed in a bodega owned by the Hollen family. These wines have been picked up by Dimitri Wine and Spirits Distributing and should be available at Iowa Hy-Vees.
Another wine worth mentioning is the 2009 Apothic Red. This is a “winemaker’s blend” from California. The main attribute of this particular bottle, other than its fancy label, is the chocolate taste of the wine. Other reviews of the wine are all over the place, but you can’t go wrong if you want to see just how much chocolate taste can be extracted from a grape. While not a wine that I would want to drink every week, it would be a fantastic addition to a wine tasting or a large party where it would be, I am sure, a party favorite for its novelty. Sometimes you need to mix things up.
Another Cabernet Sauvignon that was definitely a hit at the showcase was the 2007 Columbia Valley NxNW Cabernet Sauvignon by North by Northwest, or NxNW. This is a blend of a number of grapes from different vineyards and includes 10% Merlot, 3% of Cabernet Franc and 3% of Petit Verdot grapes. The vineyards are printed right on the label. This is a highly rated wine and it was true to its reputation. The wine had a very sophisticated taste, complete with the oak and tannins that are a feature of Cabs, though without being oppressive. This is a very nice $20 bottle of wine that comes with some very high ratings.
Other wines that I thought were very good for their reported price included The Opolo Vineyards Mountain Zinfandel, The Horse Heaven Hills Columbia Crest 2008 Merlot and 2008 River’s Edge Umpqua Valley Pinot Noir. All three were very good representatives of their varietals and all shared one aspect that I like in a wine, and that is great flavor.
Now on to the beer.
Peace Tree was offering tastes of their three beers, Red Rambler, Hop Wranger, and Rye Porter. Of the three, the Rye was most surprising, though all three were well made. The Hop Wrangler is, as the name implies, a hoppy beer. It featured a very hops-heavy aroma and a bitterness on the backend common to those brews. The Rye Porter was a malt-heavy beer. It was smooth and had a depth of flavor worth trying. The beer seemed to have a effervescence embedded in the brew. I also learned that in a few weeks that Peace Tree will be shipping out some Peace Tree Double IPA for fans of super hopped up beers. This beer has the coolest label (looks like an old-fashioned liquor certificate) and is highly rated. So, keep your eyes peeled for that.
Monihan’s Speakeasy Lounge is on the SE corner of the main floor of the Renaissance Savery at 4th and Locust in downtown Des Moines. The bar has an island layout with the booze kept on an overhead rack and behind the counter. The bar has a very limited selection of draft beers on tap but is well stocked for cocktails. The tap appears to be some sort of antique. Serving sizes are average as is the cost. The bartender had no problem keeping up with the twelve or so in the bar at the time.
The surroundings are very comfortable with upholstered chairs and tables along with the usual bar seating. The comfortable seating fits the need for a place for people to crash after a hard day traveling. It is also a destination for stage help staying at the hotel after a Civic Center show ends for the evening. The bartender that served us was very knowledgable and managed to make a standard Manhattan with bourbon with no problem.
Monihan's Speakeasy Lounge is supposedly named after some fellow who ran a gin speakeasy from a room on the third floor of the hotel from 1928 to 1932 when the place was busted for the last time.
Monihan's is one of the few upscale bars accessible to the Des Moines skywalk system now that Winstons and Azaleas are both closed, though I hear that a re-fashioned bar and restaurant in the old Azalea location will have a soft opening tonight. It is supposed to be more downscale, though the bar area is not undergoing any real change, which is fine since it had no issues to begin with.
If you live in Omaha and don’t know what the Crescent Moon is, you’re doing something wrong. It’s so much a part of the regional drinking culture that it becomes an unexamined phenomenon. Case in point: it’s taken 25 posts for me to get around to writing about it.
The Crescent Moon, together with the Huber Haus, Max and Joe’s, and Beertopia, are all called “Beer Corner USA.” Despite the rather silly title, it’s one of the best beer bars in Omaha, not to mention the Midwest. And this isn’t just my opinion – it’s routinely cited in a beer mags along with mythical beer-heavens in Chicago and KC.
The Moon has nightly specials like hot wings, sliders, and tacos, but I’d stick to the usual (and quite good) pub fare. My favorite is the Reuben sandwich, which some say was invented across the street at the old Blackstone Hotel.
The Huber Haus is done in the style of a German beer hall, complete with long communal tables and wood paneling. It’s locally famous for serving beer in gigantic glass boots imported from Germany (where else?). Getting a boot with a few friends is a great way to drink. Just don’t stand around shouting “Das Boot!” like some idiots do: “das boot” means “the boat” in German. You could stand around and shout “Das Schuh!”, but I doubt that would be much of an improvement. Just sit down and drink your beer like a damn adult.
Beer Corner does a number of excellent annual events. There’s Oktoberfest, of course, which is probably Omaha’s largest. For two nights every September they pack out the bars and the parking lot. They serve pretzels, schnitzel, weiners, along with huge trailers of beer kegs. It’s a really crazy event (for the Midwest).
Bockfest is another fun event. They server a few trailers of imported and regional bock and a big firepit used to heat fire pokers. The idea is that they’ll put a hot iron poker in your beer which will boil it and carmelize the sugars. I don’t know if there’s really anything to this, but it does impart a smoky, creamy taste.
While the Moon and friends are not my favorite bar in Omaha, they’re nonetheless a vital and dynamic force in the regional beer culture and I’m practically there every week anyway for some event or another.
Crouse Cafe in downtown Indianola, Iowa is one of those small-town cafes that serves great pies. When you find a place that makes good pies, you need to take note and make an effort to go back. Great pie places don’t last forever as the ability and willingness to make great scratch pies is usually limited to a particular cook. Breitbach’s in Balltown, Iowa was one of those places that offered great pies, though I don’t know if the same local lady is making pies for Breitbach’s after the place burned down twice in as many years. Too often, a restaurant offering great pies suddenly switches to the generic corporate pies that come in a nice white truck every Thursday. You know those pies; they are all very uniform in size and usually sickeningly sweet. I’ve all but quit ordering dessert as so few restaurants make their own anymore. If any readers know of a place that still makes their own desserts, drop me a note and I’ll mention it. Anyway, some friends got together and had lunch at Crouse Cafe and after eating a very good lunch we just had to test the pies. Actually, we could see the pies in their round pie display case on the counter just begging to be eaten. The Coconut Creme Pie was described as the best ever. I had the apple pie and it was excellent, featuring a sugared crust on top. This isn’t excactly the right season to order apple pie using fresh apples, but it was good all the same and everyone agreed that the creme pies were top-notch. The veteran waitress made us out-of-towners feel right at home, with wry comments and menu suggestions when it looked like we might not order enough food. The place was packed but the wait staff was able to keep up with the rush. I wish restaurants charging three times as much for an entree could have service that good. So, if you find yourself in Indianola, drop by and make sure to keep room for a pie.
Prices for lunches were in the $5 to $7 range. The restaurant is just off the southeast corner of the town square.
After opening and drinking a bottle of Lucky Bucket’s IPA, I decided that I lacked a good reference point. Just how much and what kind of a hops taste is common among regional IPA’s? As I’ve said before and will say again, there is no perfect beer or wine or whiskey. It just depends on what you are looking for at that point in time. Sure, there are bad ones out there, but each brewery and distillery has an opportunity to blend the usual ingredients in different ways and proportions to tease out a different taste. The only way to find out what is out there when it comes to the India Pale Ale is to sit down and try a number of regional India Pale Ales:
Summit Brewing Co.’s India Pale Ale 65 BU 6.4% alcohol. The website lists three hops that are used in making the beer: Nothern Brewer, East Kent Golding, and Target. The East Kent Golding is dry hopped into the beer. Dry hopping adds the hops after the fermentation and boiling processes are complete in order to introduce aromatics. The brewery uses two types of malt. The beer is a crisp medium-bodied beer. It has that bitter aftertaste that is common to these IPAs. The head was thin and the beer itself is honey-colored. The beer has a typical hop aroma but it lacked the herbacious fragrance detected in the Lucky Bucket IPA and, to a lesser degree, the New Belgium Ranger IPA. The beer was quite good as beers go and I think that it is a very competent IPA.
BU 65
6.4% alcohol
New Belgium Ranger India Pale Ale. 70 IBUs 6.55 ABV The bottle and website have quite a bit of information on the making of this IPA. The beer is infused with three varieties of hops: Simcoe, Chinnook, and Cascade. If the very strange video is a good guide, the hops are fresh and some, at least, are not pelletized. The color of the beer is a darker honey color. The beer has a fair head. There is just a slight essence of what I identify as a “herbacious” or fresh cut herbs smell as you tip it back for the first sip. This aroma was only stronger in the Lucky Bucket IPA. The beer has the familiar hops bite of bitterness as it finishes. Overall, this is a very well made and balanced IPA. There was only a very small whiff of ammonia for maybe a half-second. This is an odor I’ve come to dislike in New Belgium’s Fat Tire beer, made by the same brewery. Everyone else seems to like Fat Tire, so I’ll say no more. Overall, there is a lot of hop flavor and aroma in this Ranger IPA. If you can’t handle the super-high hopped flavors and aromas in the Lucky Bucket IPA, but you are still have an insane desire for a lot of hops in your beer then this might be your ticket. If you watch the video don’t say I didn’t warn you that it is strange. Seeing beer drinking white guys do rap is, well, not for the faint of heart. I think that they planned this video after indulging in more than a few of their beers.
IBU: 70
Alcohol: 6.5%
Goose Island IPA
Goose Island Beer Co.’s India Pale Ale. 55 IBU. The color is light honey. The beer had more head than almost any other of the IPAs. After tipping it back for the first swig I didn’t perceive any of the herbaciousness I’d detected in the Ranger or Lucky Bucket IPAs. But as the head went down I got a good whiff of hops. It has a heavier feel in the mouth than the other IPAs, with a good balance between the malts and the hops. I do not know if the other IPAs are pasturized, but this beer is advertised as being non-pasturized. I am a big fan of unpasturized beer. The heating process seems to dull the finish. The beer had a bottling date of October 5, 2010, so I was half way through the 180 day recommended life of the beer. I’d like to try a fresher bottle to see if the age of the beer had any effect. This beer uses four different pelletized hops, styrian, Fuggle, Cascade, and Centennial. I say that they are pelletized as the video on the website showed pellets. This IPA kind of fizzes on the tongue. The finish is typically bitter for IPAs, but there is a nice sweetness that rounds out the beer. If you are crazy for a super hopped-up beer, the Lucky Bucket and Ranger IPAs will be more your speed. But this was my favorite for an IPA that does not overwhelm the palate with hops.
IBU: 55
Alcohol 5.9%
Glass of Lucky Bucket IPA
Lucky Bucket IPA 65 IBU and 6.3% Alcohol. Lucky Bucket’s IPA is like no beer I’ve ever tasted. First, if you have any question at all what hops taste and smell like, then you need to try this beer, if only for the single purpose of teaching you forever what hops taste like. I am pretty sure after drinking this beer that if I were lost in the wilderness that I could find a hop bush after drinking this beer. The hops used in making this beer include Amarillo, Centellinal and Cascade. Lucky Bucket’s IPA is all about fresh hops. But it is more than just the hops you may remember tasting in some beers — a lot more. The first thing I noticed is that this is a fairly dark beer. It is not as dark as most dark ales, but it is also not an amber yellow beer as you can see in the photo. The beer has a nice foamy head. The second thing I noticed when tipping it back was a distinct aroma that can only be described as “herbaceous.” I was surprised by that. I’ve never smelled anything like that in a beer before. This is the essence of super fresh hops that I am sensing. These are not dried-out hop pellets I’m smelling, but real, fresh hops that are infused into the beer. Lucky Bucket points out in their website that they use actual fresh hops, not the pelletized hops that other breweries advertise. The floral aroma reminds me of the smell that floats up from our herb garden after thinning it in the middle of the summer. I don’t know how they bottle that in a beer, but there it is. Next comes the taste. While there is the classic bitterness that comes with hops, there is also more of that fresh garden green leafy flavor that comes through along with the malt base. This is a very powerful and even opinionated beer. As I said when I started this review I don’t think that words can be found that can adequately describe the taste or experience. If you like IPAs and hop-crazy beers, then you have to try this Lucky Bucket beer. If you don’t like IPAs because they are too bitter, then give this a try. Even with all of the hop flavor i was surprised to find that the beer was not as bitter as many others — the bitterness is really secondary to the aroma of fresh hops. If you don’t like IPAs because they are too hoppy, then this may not be your cup of beer.
65 IBU
6.3% alcohol
Disclaimer: This bottle of Lucky Bucket IPA was provided by the good folks at Lucky Bucket at no cost to me.
Conclusions. As I said at the outset, there is no perfect beer, just beers that are right for certain people at certain times and some bad beers that nobody should want or drink. If it fresh hop aroma that you want, start with the Lucky Bucket and work your way through Ranger and Goose island to Summit. If you want a mild beer with some hop flavor, then reverse the list. Want something in the middle? Then try either the Goose Island or the Ranger.
This 2008 Director’s Sonoma County Chardonnay by Francis Ford Coppola is a solid Chardonnay. I liked the overall balance. It had a mineral and grass aroma and just enough of classic Chardonnay “butter taste” without it being cloying. There was oak and a dry finish that makes it go well with opinionated foods. The grapes that go into this wine are not from any single vineyard. That might explain a lack of any particular character unique to the wine. For a California Chardonnay in this lower to mid price range it is a solid buy.
While watching the bartender make an Old Fashioned at the newly opened Kirkwood Lounge (formerly Azalea), it was obvious that there are many ways to mix an Old Fashioned cocktail. The bartender and Sean Wilson go out of their way to put a unique twist on a lot of the ingredients for common cocktails, so if you are looking for traditional recipes then maybe the new Kirkwood Lounge is not the place to go. But you would lose out on a lot of the fun in ordering cocktails. Nothing is set in stone. But this did spur me to do some research on making the “Old Fashioned.” After I congratulated myself with having found what I assumed to be the oldest printed recipe for an Old Fashioned I found that someone had beaten me to the punch with a Wikipedia entry. Anyway, here is the oldest recipe found to date:
