Old Fashioned Drink for Men or Women

You cannot get more archetype than a classic Sometime Fashioned. This humble concoction of four ingredients—whiskey, sugar, bitters, and water—is quite literally the cocktail that started it all. Information technology was that particular (and rather unremarkable) recipe that appeared alongside the start-ever printed use of the word "cocktail" manner back in 1806. And 80 years afterwards, the name "Old Fashioned" started getting tossed around in bars to depict said cocktail recipe. Yes, even the old-timers of the 1880s considered it to be an sometime-school drink. Since those sepia-toned days, the Former Fashioned has enjoyed illustrious comebacks as new generations of boozers accept fallen for its simple charm. Our approximate is human beings will be drinking Erstwhile Fashioneds until stop times, because the damned drink will never non be cool.

All of which is to say, the Old Fashioned is a cocktail that's been around for a while, and for good reason. The sweetness makes it smoother than a lot of other whiskey-based drinks, though information technology remains a stiff-jawed, spirit-forward option. Fortunately, with few ingredients, information technology's too an easy cocktail to primary. We prefer ours with rye over bourbon.

A Lilliputian Background

There are two cultural touchpoints that show where we stand up with Old Fashioneds these days. The first is Mad Men. Don Draper, '60s era marketing bad guy with killer mode and ruthless amuse, sipped Old Fashioneds fabricated with rye, order soda, and cherry (we'll allow it). He embodied the classic aura of Former Fashioned drinkers: stylish, successful, male. We loved him, and the show, for it. Ryan Gosling's character in Crazy, Stupid, Love fit that nib, besides, with a 21st-Century twist. He made his Old Fashioned the traditional way, at his home bar late at nighttime, then did the Dirty Dancing lift with a love interest—a devastating combo.

And perhaps that's why men, especially younger men, have always flocked to the cocktail: Information technology's alcoholic comfort food that never lost its absurd. Only seeing the Former Fashioned equally just a traditionally men's drinkable is a stiff fashion to look at it.

"We get a lot more women ordering traditional Old Fashioneds, and so I definitely meet a lot more multifariousness," says Annie Beebe-Tron, bar director at the Ladies' Room in Chicago. "Y'all don't desire to presume the Former Fashioned is his and the shaken cocktail is hers, which it often isn't."

Cocktail culture evolves, and archetype whiskey drinks similar the Sometime Fashioned don't exude exclusionary male-ness the way they used to. Thank goodness.

If You Like This, Try These

The One-time Fashioned is 1 of half-dozen root cocktails upon which all mixology is built, according to the Cocktail Codex, a volume from the legendary Death & Co bar team. That doesn't mean you can't go funky with it. "The beauty of the Old-Fashioned is that nearly any spirit tin can be used equally the core as long as the other ingredients support and emphasis that spirit," the team says. Swap your bourbon or rye for rum or mezcal—or both, like this recipe calls for. Gin is another option. For those less inclined to live on the edge, an Irish whiskey Old Fashioned could do the fox.