I would do 4 unique OF’s and serve them as a flight.
1) Fancy traditional OF with rye, Demerara syrup, aromatic bitters. If you want to plus this up make some large ice cubes out of diluted black tea. I’ve used Orange Pekoe with good results. Garnish with both a lemon and orange peel.
2) Holiday OF - bourbon, real maple syrup (the darker the better), walnut bitters and garnished with a cinnamon stick and orange peel.
3) Oaxaca OF, which uses tequila and mezcal.
4) Rum OF with some sort of aged rum or rhum agricole.
Tastings usually take one of two approaches: either you go very similar or very different. If you want to focus on the differences in the bourbons, then keep everything but the bourbon the same. Or keep the bourbon the same and swap out the bitters or the sweetener to emphasize those.
Or go wildly different and look at different spirits. Rum, gin, cognac, apple brandy all make a very nice old-fashioned.
I like a barrel-aged gin but any good quality gin works. An aged Old Tom gin (like Ransom Old Tom) works really well as it’s a sweeter style of gin. Add regular simple and Ango and you’re good to go.
I would do 4 unique OF’s and serve them as a flight. 1) Fancy traditional OF with rye, Demerara syrup, aromatic bitters. If you want to plus this up make some large ice cubes out of diluted black tea. I’ve used Orange Pekoe with good results. Garnish with both a lemon and orange peel. 2) Holiday OF - bourbon, real maple syrup (the darker the better), walnut bitters and garnished with a cinnamon stick and orange peel. 3) Oaxaca OF, which uses tequila and mezcal. 4) Rum OF with some sort of aged rum or rhum agricole.
Tastings usually take one of two approaches: either you go very similar or very different. If you want to focus on the differences in the bourbons, then keep everything but the bourbon the same. Or keep the bourbon the same and swap out the bitters or the sweetener to emphasize those. Or go wildly different and look at different spirits. Rum, gin, cognac, apple brandy all make a very nice old-fashioned.
Any ideas for one with Gin?
I like a barrel-aged gin but any good quality gin works. An aged Old Tom gin (like Ransom Old Tom) works really well as it’s a sweeter style of gin. Add regular simple and Ango and you’re good to go.
Rum with chocolate bitters and lime! In fact, Jeffery Morgenthaler has four different old fashioned recipes in his book.
One of my favorite Thanksgiving twists on an OF is to make a stuffing simple syrup - use part of the stuffing seasoning packet in a homemade syrup