This Secret Ingredient Makes The Best Old Fashioned Ever.

I keep talking about how Josh makes the best Old Fashioneds I've ever had. You guys have asked for the recipe so here it is. It's super simple and there is a special secret ingredient that you're not going to find on almost any other Old Fashioned recipe. Let's get into it. Welcome to Stuffed on Whiskey. I'm Erin. I'm Josh. Thank you for joining us today. Erin gives me high praise for this Old Fashioned. I'm not going to pretend like it's anything fancy or special. It's just what I do with what we've got and I think it's going to be something that's really going to resonate with you guys. I do have a secret ingredient in here and I'll tell you why when I get to it. I had to find a workaround. Necessity is the mother of invention and that's where we landed here and it actually worked out very well. We're actually going to shoot this uncut. I want you to see the whole process start to finish without any extraneous stuff. Let's get to it because I want an Old Fashioned. What is an Old Fashioned first off? Any cocktail is spirit, sugar, water, bitters. There's four ingredients. When it comes to Old Fashioned, typically your spirit is bourbon or rye. Your sugar is simple syrup or a sugar cube. Your water is the ice that continues to melt in the cocktail over a period of time. Then what was the other thing? Spirit, sugar, water, bitters. Usually and traditionally Angostura bitters which I do use because I like to take something that's classic and elevate it and put a twist on it rather than getting crazy. Too fancy. Sometimes we'll use cocktail bitters or chili malay bitters or whatever but predominantly I like to make an elevated experience on a very classic profile. And for me when you're making things for me I tend to like the classicness of things so when you try to get a little extra. I'm looking at you Will at Egg Salad Sandwich. When you try a little extra I don't like it as much. I do not endorse that statement and I want that stricken from the record as far as this channel goes. Got a jigger here. One ounce, half ounce. Use whatever you got or eyeball it or use a shot glass or something like that. These are not fancy by the way. I think I've said that. We like to use JTS Brown. It makes the best and you can get a whole 1.75 liter handle of this. It is nice and inexpensive. You get a lot. Now this isn't in every market. We stock up on it. If you can't get it Wild Turkey 101 makes a great one as well. And if you are more of a rye person then we find that the Old Forester 100 proof rye is fantastic for old fashions. This is going to make it a little bit more cherry forward. The Wild Turkey is going to make it a little bit more cherry forward but not as much as the Old Forester. This right here is just as classic as old-fashioned gets. So we're just going to build this in the glass and we're going to put two ounces of JTS Brown in here. And I'm not filling up quite to the top here. Now I like a spirit forward cocktail so I usually do like two and a half ounces. Oh really? Yeah. So we're already twisting on the classics. Do you normally or did you just do that for today? I typically do. Okay because however you normally make them I like. So I guess I must like a spirit forward cocktail as well. I like to go a little bit more on the spirit pull back a little less on the sweet. Yeah that checks out. And that tends to make it balance out because we're using a sweet bourbon as the base. Yep. And when it's spirit sugar instead of any simple syrup I just use maple syrup. Used to ride bikes, run, do a lot of endurance sports. Maple syrup is fantastic for energy but also ingredient list. Maple syrup. Maple syrup. So it's natural and way better than processed sugar in my opinion. And I do like maple syrup. Yes. The flavor of maple syrup. And I typically do a little less than half an ounce. Okay. In there on this. So throw the maple syrup in there. Will the recipe before this be written in the description or no? Yeah I'll put it in the video description. So spirit, sugar, water. We already got that. Yep. Bitters. Angostura. Classic as classic gets. I like the just the regular thing like this. I don't like to deal with the droppers and all that stuff. This thing can get a little messy especially when it's full but I just do two dashes. You know simple and easy. And here's the secret ingredient. Okay. Secret ingredient. I'm actually hold on a secret ingredient. Oh. Because you always garnish with a cherry right? Yes. Use Luxardo's. Seriously. Spend the extra money. They're worth it 100%. It makes a difference. So Erin typically likes two cherries. I do. So I usually do two cherries and I make sure I get some good. Get some juice in there. Some juice in there. And I'm just gonna leave that there. Can I stir it? Nope. I don't need it to be stirred yet. It needs a secret ingredient. Oh. Now typically if I was going for presentation purposes I would get an orange and I would you know do a little do a little number. Garnish and mint. Yeah. You know do a little number. Get some get some rind. I might even flame the rind. I might even put the cherries on a little spit. I might go. Oh my gosh. That's really. You know I might twist this up and express it over the top. But let's be honest. Here's the truth. We never have an orange at our house. We never have oranges at our house. I bought this specifically for this video. Right. We never have oranges. So oftentimes we're like well I want old-fashioned and I want that that little bit of that citrus orange kick. How do we get that? I'll tell you how. You get Grand Marnier. This is a cognac orange liqueur mixture and I will read you exactly what it says. Grand Marnier is a liqueur made with a unique blend of cognac and a liqueur of exotic bitter oranges. Some people use orange bitters in place of an orange. I just use a dash. Like you do not even measure it? Nope. Just a dash of Grand Marnier. Okay. And this is a secret ingredient. False. And that's because we don't typically ever have oranges. And it's like I would never know. Like he makes this for me more frequently than we have than let me go to the store to buy oranges. Right. Exactly. And oftentimes like we don't plan on making old fashions very often. We just hang out and we're like you know what I feel like an old fashion right now and I'm like yeah don't have an orange. They're more sporadic than planned. Right. Don't have orange. Don't have orange bitters. What do I have that has some orange flavoring in it? And by the way cognac is just a fantastic spirit in and of itself. A lot of people who like whiskey also like cognac. This puts a nice twist and I think elevates the old fashion. It's not much to look at but it is good to taste. As the ice cube melts which by the way I'll put a link to the molds we use. They're cheap Amazon silicone molds. I don't care about clear ice. It's so good. It's just a straightforward old fashion. Two and a half ounces of bourbon or rye. Half an ounce of sweetener. A little less than half an ounce actually. The the cherry cocktails the Luxardo's with a little bit of cherry syrup. Two dashes of Angostura bitters and the Grand Marnier. Yeah and I definitely think this is classic. This isn't. I don't speak about how good it is because it's different. I speak about how good it is to me because it's it just tastes a really good old fashion. I don't know. It's so good. I just really love it. There's something about the combination of the maple syrup and the I think it has to be either the maple syrup and or the cocktail cherry syrup from the Luxardo cherries and or the Grand Marnier the cognac orange liqueur. It's got to be something about the combination of all those that makes this it's almost creamy. Yeah and I do think using the maple syrup it does need that extra little bit of alcohol because maple syrup I feel like is so sweet that having that little extra half an ounce of alcohol in there really balances out the sweetness of the maple syrup and makes it not super sweet. Now if you're one who really likes a sweet cocktail like a very sweet cocktail maybe don't do the extra alcohol but for me this is perfect. It's just a nice balance of sweetness with the alcohol and you need a little orange. Well I mean if I was really trying to make this nice I get one of those metal toothpicks I put the cherry on the middle I'd wrap the I'd put the orange rind on I put the cherry on I'd wrap the orange around the other side and put it on and I'd put it across the top. Yeah but when you're just making it at home this is great because then it's like at the end I get to have the cherries it's like a little a little happy place. Right but yeah I mean as the ice continues to melt it continues I think to get even more cohesive. It's a super simple dead simple recipe the Grand Marnier is 35 bucks in our market for a 750 milliliter. The JTS Brown is like under 30 bucks for a 1.75 liter handle. If you can get a 750 milliliter of that it's like 10 to 15 bucks. This is a dirt cheap old-fashioned. One of the most expensive ingredients by volume in here is the maple syrup and it really doesn't matter what kind you get I tend to get just like the amber color or the the light amber I don't usually get the dark amber that's a little I found that's a little aggressive for this but just anything works I mean at your local grocery store but really I mean it's it's a quality of ingredients thing you know pure maple syrup no additives luxardo cherries a decent quality classic bourbon or rye angostura bitters yeah and you know like like Erin said adjust your proportions up and down let me try a drink with the orange in here it's actually really good with the little orange that you squeeze in there too but yeah just for convenience sake I love the fact that you found that out because we don't always keep oranges on hand right and I want to be able to have an old-fashioned whenever I want and what you get out of adding the orange peel especially when I do it I usually tend to I don't usually flame the orange peel but usually I'll twist it and squeeze it to express it a little bit and then I'll wipe the oil around the lid and then just the rim yeah the rim and then I'll just chuck the orange peel in there and what you get by adding this that you don't get with just the Grand Marnier is that you get a an aromatic experience as you're raising the glass to your mouth you get a little bit more of the orange now flavor wise it doesn't make a huge difference with the orange in there versus without when you use the Grand Marnier because you get that orange liqueur and the cognac kind of coming through regardless but this is fantastic I mean usually when I make these I make them in double batches like the glass is filled up to here because it's so good but you've often said these are the best old fashions and we go out to restaurants they they still are and you order old fashions even at cocktail bars old fashions were my drink of choice back in my dating days and I've had plenty of them and this is by far my favorite there you go I get frustrated I don't even order old fashions out anymore it's like steaks I can't order steaks at restaurants anymore I'd rather just cook it myself yeah I can't order old fashions out anymore I'd rather just make it myself so hopefully you enjoyed this video we've had a lot of requests for this because Erin mentions my old fashions a lot in videos I I'm sorry I'm actually no I'm not sorry I'm glad I said that because now you guys also can make these for yourself so you're welcome a few simple ingredients very easy to put together you can keep these ingredients on hand all the time they're gonna last you forever so hopefully you enjoyed this if you did think about subscribing if you like cocktail videos like this let us know in the comments below maybe we'll do some more of these yeah and check out our patreon at patreon.com slash stuff and whiskey fantastic community of people we got a cocktail corner over on discord and you can access our discord through patreon people are posting really good recipes all the time over there people are sharing samples helping people find things bottles all kinds of stuff that's where we release our barrel picks we do bonus live stream content there's literally something for anybody over there if you like our content and want to be plugged into a really good online community of good people who appreciate good whiskey and good cocktails and you can find shirts just like this drink wear shirt including some cocktail favorites over at stuffandwhiskey.com as well as Erin's cozy corner for the holiday gift ideas that you can check out down there and uh yeah I think that's it all right that's it for today y'all be good to each other and until next time cheers cheers save that for me as good as advertised yeah I know I usually make a double one of these because you yeah I'm I don't want you to drink this