Talk:Old fashioned (cocktail)/Archive 1

Archive 1

History

The Old Fashioned is the same as the Cock-Tail, for all intents and purposes. Including it shows that the name means make it the old way, without adding any curacao, maraschino, or absinthe, etc. Booze + sugar+ water + bitters = Cock-Tail = Old Fashioned. I think it's pertinent here. As for the further origin of the Old Fashioned,aside from an ambiguous newspaper reference in 1869, the first direct mention of the Old Fashioned cocktail occurs in the article THE DEMOCRACY IN TROUBLE from The Chicago Daily Tribune; Feb 15, 1880, a year before the Pendennis Club was founded, debunking the Pendennis Club origin story. A subsequent article in the same paper two years later reveals "old-fashioned cocktails still in vogue..."and describes a whiskey old-fashioned made with loaf sugar; rye being more popular than bourbon. So, the Pendennis story needs to be identified more clearly as being the legendary origin.

The fundamental origin of the naming of the cocktail is missing and the sources lack the modern historical perspective & research that establishes its place in cocktailology. Cocktail recipe sites are not historical sources. 19th & 20th century writings are research elements, but also not sources; they are often factually & historically incorrect. There was no academia dealing with the cocktail until very recently & as such 19th & early 20th century sources taken individually usually don't present the real story; that is, they tend to contain a lot of error of retransmission & myth. Recipe guides must be checked against scholarly writing on the subject. All previously included academic references have been removed, ie, David Wondrich, et al.. Included are recipes that erroneously call a plain cocktail an Old Fashioned (the addition of orange curacao makes it a Plan cocktail; not everyone understood that 70-100 years ago & repeated the error in writing). Think of it this way: If I tell someone a century ago an Old Fashioned is made with sugar, a couple dashes of bitters, muddled with a slice of orange peel, a splash of soda (cuz it dissolves the sugar better than plain water), and whiskey (cuz, that's the only way folks in my area order it), what could easily happen when that recipe is repeated? 'Slice' of orange peel, becomes slice of orange; the reason for the soda is not included & subsequent bartenders figure it must come at the end on top, etc...and you eventually get the grotesque slurry of mashed up fruit, whiskey & soda water that one too easily comes across. It was a bad game of telephone.

It doesn't explain the simple idea that this particular drink is listed repeatedly for many years,with little variation from the "Cock-Tail", variously as an "Old Style" cocktail & an"Old Fashioned" cocktail because the term meant "Cock-Tail" in the recipe's more basic form: sugar, water, bitters and booze. People in the latter 19th and early 20th century who just wanted their Cocktail without any new fangledness asked for it as such, "Give me a Whiskey Cocktail, the Old Fashioned way", or "Old Style"...the liquor was also specified; It did not become a Whiskey-only drink until later, and the name is often used to mean "Cock-Tail" today, as in, "Give me a Ransom Gin Old Fashioned," which simply means, give the guy a Gin Cocktail made with Ransom gin. This is actually in keeping with the original meaning. Fundamentally, old fogies, and strangely, a lot of folks in the Chicago area, in the latter 19th Century, didn't want the (in their opinion) unpleasant surprise of a dash of orange curacao or absinthe turning up in their drink. That is the established origin of the drink historically. Ted Haigh, David Wondrich, and several others have written on it, but Wondrich is the foremost expert & cocktail historian and he is, without question, the final authority on this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M3eeks (talk • contribs) 23:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to cross referencing or even replacing the current references with more reliable/scholarly/historic sources. But as is, the article needs to be expanded with some level of sourcing. If there are no new sources that actually contradict the reliability or accuracy of the current sources, it's best to leave the current sources in place rather than delete anything or add our own original research. Vcessayist (talk) 20:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The present version is much more coherent than previous ones, but could use a bit more information. In looking at the history of revision, it seems a lot of opinion has gone into revising this article, which given the topic, is not surprising. Older versions were a confused mess, but did contain some since dropped reliable sources, and accurate information, that didn't seem to match the opinions of some editors. Ex: Gin in an old fashioned does happen & did happen. Reference to it was removed, but without reason, other than they didn't think it was right. For a few decades, it was a whiskey-only drink, but that was not originally, nor is it currently, the case. Perhaps, covering it as its 'commonly known' whiskey version, then as the general drink of whiskey, or brandy, or Holland gin, sugar, water, and bitters, as Kappeler documented in his 1895 guide, is necessary. Given the origin of the Old-Fashioned & its direct connection to the original Cock-Tail, non-whiskey versions must be accepted. They were common as Cock-Tails, and as Old Fashioneds in 19th century, as they are today. Also, even if it hurts, the once ubiquitous versions full of fruit and soda water, though hard to find in any guides, probably should be covered. There's also an Old Fashioned, which I think might derive from Hugo Esslin's Old-Fashioned Appetizer (rye, Doubonnet, curacao, absinthe), which contains whiskey, vermouth, orange juice. it's pretty bad. I've been served it several times, in all parts of the U.S., but cannot find any documentation. It's probably a bartending school recipe. If anyone can find anything on that one, I think we'd have all old-fashioneds covered, good and bad.

What exactly are you not understanding here? Do that and I'm pretty sure you'll be blocked (by the way, you might also want to read WP:TLDR). Erpert ^{WHAT DO YOU WANT???} 08:27, 28 January 2014 (UTC)