Winter-Spiced Old Fashioned 🥃 : Winter Sipper Cocktail Series

The Old Fashioned is the epitome of a classic cocktail. It’s three ingredients: a spirit, a sweetener, and bitters.  Those three components open up a world of creativity, I’ll list some common old-fashioned flavour affinities at the bottom 😉.

For today’s recipe, we’re sticking with bourbon - everyone loves it, and it's great for these cold and rainy days. We’ll make a winter-spiced syrup and it will make this slight riff on the classic a bit more, well, wintery.

First, we’ll cover the simple syrup, then the actual cocktail, and then a big batch recipe.

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Step 1:  Winter-Spiced Simple Syrup

Here’s what you’ll need to make one cocktail

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 cup water

• Spices

  • Spices

    • 4 cinnamon sticks

    • 6 allspice berries

    • 6 cloves

    • 3 star-anise pods

Add the above ingredients to a saucepan, and heat on medium-low until the sugar is dissolved.  

Remove from heat and let the spices steep in the syrup for as long as you like.  The longer you leave the mixture to mingle, the more flavour you’ll impart on it.  

Fine strain the syrup into a bottle and refrigerate.

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Step 2 - Make The Drink

Here’s what you’ll need to make one cocktail:

• 2 oz bourbon

• ½ oz Winter-Spiced Simple Syrup

• 3 dashes of Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass - if you don’t have one we recommend this one, or this one if you’re looking for an entire kit ;)

Strain into a rocks glass over ice (ice spheres are perfect to limit dilution, and these ones don’t take all the real estate in your fridge either)

Garnish with an orange peel, and enjoy!

Enjoy!

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Step 3 - Batch It For Convenience

Here’s the bottling recipe that’ll save you a ton of time, 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 bottle that will hold 750ml - I recommend cleaning the bottle, and removing the label. 

• A funnel

• A measuring cup, we love this one

• Bourbon - We love Bulleit

• Angostura Bitters

• Winter-Spiced Syrup

In a bottle combine the following:

• 515ml Bulleit Bourbon

• 125ml Winter Spiced Simple Syrup

• 20ml Angostura Bitters

• 90ml Water

*Why Water?  Dilution is perhaps the most important component of a cocktail (behind quality ingredients) in fact aside from bringing cocktails to temperature, it’s why we shake or stir cocktails. 

By adding water now we don’t need to stir to dilution when we’re ready for a drink.  We can simply store it in the fridge and serve it right from the bottle. It’s too easy. 

You can add a fancy label to this bottle, write a personal note to attach to it, or simply leave the bottle blank. 

That's it. Enjoy!

Bonus Recipe:

Old Fashioned flavour affinities:

1. Rum + Winter-Spiced syrup + Angostura bitters and Chocolate bitters

2. Reposado Tequila + Agave Nectar + Chocolate Bitters

3. Rye Whiskey + Peychaud's Bitters + Simple Syrup or Winter-Spiced Syrup

4. Dark Rum + Cinnamon Syrup + Cardamom Bitters

5. Bourbon + Cold Brew Syrup + Root Beer Bitters + Chocolate Bitters

To use these pairing, follow the same recipe as above, but substitute the bourbon (2oz) for one of the following spirits. Do the same for your sweetener (1/2 oz) and the bitters (3 dashes)