Splificator

A) Thanks! B) Brut and French pretty much covers it. Almost all of these Punches are from a time when the only imitation champagnes were needled Jersey cider, and we don't want to go there. You obviously don't need the most distinctive champagne for Punch-making, but neither should it taste nasty. And if it's not brut, that's even more authentic, although I prefer to use the ultra-dry stuff if only to be in better control of the sugar level of the Punch.

Just bumping this up to give the traditional formal notice that my book on this topic, Punch: the Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl, has finally been published.

I do have to say that, after many years swearing by rich simple syrup (i.e, 2:1 Demerara syrup) in sours, I've come back to stirring in granulated sugar with the citrus juice before dding the booze and the ice and shake-shake-shake. It takes almost no time at all and it seems (to me, anyway) to make for a brighter-tasting drink. So sugar drawer? bring it on. Bugs are protein, right?

As far as I know the Scottish toddy is not derived from the Indian one, either etymologically or mixologically.

Embury's opinion is just that--one man's opinion. As is mine that an Old-Fashioned is better without the orange slice. But there were at least three generations of drinkers who largely, albeit not universally, accepted the orange slice and often the muddled cherry in their Old-Fashioneds. That's not opinion, that's historical fact. Those two things are different. That, essentially, is all I've been trying to say about this simple drink. Where you stand on it depends on whether you view it aesthetically or contextually. They're both legitimate, and it's possible to view it both ways. What is not legitimate is to confuse the two.

Erik-- Many 19th-century bars--even unto the end of the century--had a sugar drawer under the bar, that would be full of granulated sugar (and, no doubt, insects). The bartender would slide it open and spoon out the sugar. I agree that modern sugar cubes are not authentic for 19th century bar culture, but they do preserve the ritual of muddling the sugar with the splash of water. You can still get lump sugar, though, if you're a strict recreationist, and various old-fashioned types of loose sugar. If you do a close reading of 19th-century bartender's bibles (perhaps not the best use of your limited time on this earth, to be sure) you'll see a surprising number of bartenders who continued to call for sugar instead of syrup. Granulated sugar is certainly neater to work with.

I did mean to address the sugar versus syrup question, but things have been a bit hectic lately. I think Sam has summed it up well. The Old-Fashioned gained popularity as much for the archaic nature of its preparation as for its taste. I believe I waxed poetic about this somewhere upthread, but basically it recalled the days when a muddler was called a "toddy stick" and there was still such a thing as a Whig party in America. The ritual is an essential part of the drink. Sure, you can cut a corner by using syrup and achieve a congruent result, but that's not really getting into the spirit of the thing, is it? If you regard the Old-Fashioned as merely a mixological category, as some clearly do (and there's nothing wrong with that), then you may dispense with muddlers and lump sugar.

I just made some of this the other day...it is delicious, evocative of molasses (naturally). I've only tried it with Rhum Agricole so far, but the vibe I get is pretty different from the agave syrup that I've had. Your mileage may vary, as there appears to be significant variability between brands of panela/piloncillo, at least from appearance on the shelf. Yeah, sometimes it's pretty smooth. Others, I have to strain out bits of cane and dirt and ash. Still--or maybe hence--I love the stuff.

Rich simple made from Mexican piloncillo?

See, this is where we differ. While there are certainly more than a few cocktail geeks, both behind the stick and not, who are treating the Old Fashioned as a "drinks family" capacious enough to contain the kinds of variations being bandied about here (and, for the record, by that I'm mostly talking about the copious splashes of liqueurs, aperitifs and such, rather than the minute variations in sugar and bitters), I think most informed tipplers still expect an Old-Fashioned to be made like an Old-Fashioned: that is, sugar, not syrup, a healthy slug of a main spirit and a couple of dashes of bitters, stirred with ice and sprayed with citrus oil (with, of course, the option of adding a half-wheel of muddled orange to the proceedings). It's fundamentally a simple drink, a self-effacing, spirit-forward refuge from the sometimes unhinged creativity one finds behind the modern bar. In other words, it's a drink, not a family of drinks. Now, obviously, language evolves. "Cocktail" no longer means just a bittered sling. "Martini" no longer means just gin and vermouth and maybe a dash of bitters. But that's no reason to surrender "Old-Fashioned." Just because the Rommel made it through the wire, the Australians didn't give up Tobruk. But again, there are no "Old-Fashioned police." You can call a drink what you want in this world. I guess the only reason I keep coming back to this circular argument we're having is I was just beginning to feel that I could walk into a bar, ask for a rye Old-Fashioned, and get a drink substantially congruent with that little glass that's glowing warmly in my mind's eye. I'd hate to have to go back to arguing, specifying or otherwise wrangling with this one again.

Yesterday, today and always. And I agree with your basic point--to try to reverse language change is a mug's game. But I don't think the solution is to simply declare that anything vaguely resembling an old-style Cocktail is now an "Old-Fashioned," if only because there's a still a plethora of vision-deprived, blinkered literalists out there who will say "you call that an Old-Fashioned?" (I know 'cause I'm one of them.) Solution? Dunno. Wait.

Okay. Historically, it's the title Jerry Thomas (or whoever updated his book) appended in 1876 to the evolved version of the cocktail, with the sweetening split between sugar and liqueur and the bittering split between bitters and a dash or two of absinthe. As far as I can tell, it was a nonce term, used only to distinguish between the cocktail as it was being made in 1876 and the earlier versions (plain and "fancy") carried over from the earlier, 1862 edition of the book. In other words, if you were to stride into the Hoffman House bar one fine day in 1876 and command an "Improved Gin Cocktail," they would have had no idea what you were talking about. Mixologically, as you know well, the term has today come to mean the basic cocktail, with spirit, rich simple, one or another old-timey brand of bitters, plus the addition of a splash of maraschino or curacao and a dash or two of absinthe, stirred, up with a twist. In other words, it's another fossilized expression of the basic cocktail formula.

If you want to put it that way, Sam, I guess I can't argue . . . .

Here's the basic problem. We lost the use of the word "cocktail" to describe something simple with spirits, sweetener, bittering agent and diluent. That word now means anything in a cocktail glass, or even any mixed drink with spirits. Hence Adam's understandable frustration. But I don't think the solution is to wrench open the term "Old-Fashioned" to cover creative variations on the original cocktail. Maybe something with "fancy" or "improved" or "evolved" would be better. 'Cause otherwise when I order an Old-Fashioned, I'm gonna get something with stuff in it, and we're gonna have beef. Edited due to superfluity of "d"s.

Keens on W 36th St dates back to the 1880s, is gorgeous, has wonderful service and makes a very serious steak indeed.

I can't agree with this--the term "Old Fashioned" is tied to a fixed historical version of that "Cock-tail of spirit, sugar, water and bitters." In other words, it was a name given to one narrow way of interpreting that very flexible formula. Yes, after prohibition it was redefined for a new generation to allow the addition of fruit, but there were many who went around insisting that that version was no Old-Fashioned. Arguing for a new redefinition is fine, as long as you realize that that's what you're doing. Just because a little curacao does no harm to a Whiskey Cocktail that doesn't mean you'll find people to agree that it belongs in a proper Whiskey Old-Fashioned. The historical recipes that defined the Old-Fashioned are available for inspection, and they contain no curacao (or vermouth, or whatever). I'm not saying that you can't call your version an Old-Fashioned--who am I to say? Who is anyone to say? Just that you're going to have a hard time getting anyone else to call it that.

[Jeez, way to stifle a thread, Dave.]

Yikes indeed. back and forth, back and forth. I think the problem here is that there are two ways of looking at drink families in play here, the historical and the mixological. While these tend to overlap quite a bit, the alignment is never perfect, leading to off-kilter debates like this one. Historically, there's the cocktail/cock-tail. This evolved over time, roughly thus: ca. 1800: spirits, water, sugar, bitters; stirred ca. 1840: spirits, syrup or sugar + splash of water, bitters, ice; rolled or stirred; served with ice ca. 1843: option of adding absinthe ca. 1860: spirits, syrup or sugar + splash of water, bitters, ice, lemon twist; shaken or stirred; served up or with ice + option of adding curacao + " " " " " sugar rim + " " " " " splash of lemon juice These three options prove, for some, to be a trigger-point, forcing the name of the drink to be qualified as "fancy" or changed to "crusta." But for the general run of drinkers they don't bring the drink to the threshold of name-change. In other words, they're modifications, not alterations. Then: ca. 1870: + option of adding vermouth But this addition of vermouth proves to be a trigger-point, forcing the creation of an "Old-Fashioned" cocktail category, where the purists get their say. This is hinted at in print in the 1860s, discussed by 1880 and first appears in a cocktail book in 1888 (Theodore Proulx's Bartender's Manual). This is analogous to what happened to the Gin Martini in the 1980s, or the Mint Julep after the Civil War, where the most reductive, narrow definition of the drink was held up as the original standard, whereas the original drink being evoked allowed much more latitude, as it had yet to become a marker of identity or a subject of ideology. This "Old-Fashioned" style cocktail then undergoes evolution of its own: by 1916, the garnish has gotten a little more fancy. By 1933, the drink has absorbed the fruit-garnished Whiskey Toddy, making the muddled Old-Fashioned of 1940s-1960s fame. (Then, of course, come the new purists, and . . . .) There's a period, roughly 1870-1905, when the original cocktail and the Old-Fashioned overlap; when you could order a "whiskey Cocktail" in a bar and expect in most instances to get a shaken blend of whiskey (or gin, or brandy), syrup, bitters, perhaps with a splash of curacao or even maraschino and a dash of absinthe, strained and served up with a twist. You might have to talk to your bartender a bit first, though. As for the mixological Old-Fashioned: The original cocktail can also be defined as a composition of spirits, sweetener, bittering agent, diluent (that, as Wikipedia informs me, is the correct word for 'diluting agent') and optional citrus oil float. Each of these components can, of course, be viewed prismatically, so to speak: the spirit element can be unitary--whiskey--or composite--tequila and mezcal. The same goes for any of the other components. Ingredients can easily do double duty, e.g., functioning as both bittering agent and sweetener. If I had more time I would have made this much more concise. I probably could have just said "we're arguing at cross purposes" and left it at that.

And that should be "Jelly," not "Jell." I blame the gin.

I loved this. I sometimes ask myself the same thing, but in jazz terms: "why are so many people trying to be Art Tatum and not Jell Roll Morton." It's the same basic question: do you go with technique for technique's sake, or for musicality/aesthetics/whatever-it-is-in-mixing-drinks? Or do you be Charlie Parker and blow the roof off the sucker by doing both. But there are many, many Sonny Stitts for every Charlie Parker.

Precisely this. Such descriptors are merely a way to give people some common language with which to discuss spirits comparatively; they're memory-triggers. In this case, the presence of that "wet cement" note reminds me that, if the tequila doesn't immediately pop out with "olive brine" and "green pepper" notes, it might be a lowland style where such things are less common and I might want to look more closely for subtle ripe tropical fruit notes.

To be fair to Dale, I have to point out that it's not his--or anyone's--descriptor for all tequilas. It's something that I, for one, and other people I taste tequila with often pick up on in certain lowlands tequilas. A sort of sharp, but muted minerality reminiscent of the smell a cement driveway gives off when it's been splashed with water. I'd have to go through my tasting notes to pick out a couple of tequilas where it's present (like most spirits I taste carefully enough to keep notes on, they're usually tasted blind).

I agree that this is the best we can do here. It won't stop the shameless from stealing or the ignorant from applauding the thieves as creators, though. But it's not just mixologists who have to live with that galling reality. imagine how Howling Wolf felt when he first heard the Rolling Stones. Or, for that matter, how most journalists feel today, when they see their carefully-written stories percolating through the web with their bylines stripped off. I wouldn't generalize here.

I want one of those! Does it come with a white mink sleeve?

My understanding is that Plymouth used a mix of rectified spirit and whiskey wash, spiced with an English-style botanical mix (in fact, the same one they're using now). The word back in the nineteenth century was that it split the difference between an English-style gin and a Dutch genever, and that would definitely do it. It's sort of an on-the-fly equivalent of a blended base spirit, such as the Dutch took to using in the 1820s and 1830s, plus all the botanical spice we expect from an Old Tom or London Dry. Ironically this is more or less the procedure Tad Seestedt came up with for the ransom Old Tom, a year and a half before I found that stuff about the Plymouth (see, e.g., here), although Tad also does some barrel aging. This process may explain why Plymouth was so popular in America at the turn of the last century, when we were switching from a Hollands drinking country to an English gin drinking country (it wasn't until 1899 or 1900 that imports of English gin surpassed those of Dutch gin). To my palate, the Damrak has a certain irreducible Dutchness to its flavor profile. I don't know if it's the botanicals or the texture of the spirit, but it's definitely geneverish.