Dmitriy Shteynbuk — The Old Fashioned: The Drink That Defines the Word 'Cocktail'

On May 13, 1806, a reader wrote to the editor of Balance and Columbian Repository, a newspaper in Hudson, New York, and asked what a cocktail was. The editor's reply is the first printed definition of the word in the English language: 'A cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters.'

Read that sentence carefully. Spirits — a base, any base, whiskey or brandy or gin. Sugar — a sweetener. Water — the melted ice that turns raw alcohol into something drinkable. Bitters — the seasoning that separates a cocktail from a punch.

Now read the modern spec for an Old Fashioned. Two ounces of whiskey. A sugar cube. A cold-water dilution from a large ice cube. Two dashes of Angostura. It is the 1806 definition, verbatim, in a rocks glass.

This is why the Old Fashioned is the drink that defines the word cocktail. It is not the most fashionable and it is not the most photogenic. It is the one that survived because it is the category — the shortest possible arrangement of the four things a cocktail is legally required to contain.

Every other cocktail is a variation on this template. Add vermouth and you get a Manhattan. Swap the vermouth for lime juice and you get a Daiquiri. Add lemon and egg white and you get a Whiskey Sour. The Old Fashioned is not the beginning of the canon by accident. It is the beginning of the canon because it is the definition.

Learn to make one, and you have learned to make a cocktail. Everything else is a modification.