Improve Your Brandy Old Fashioned, Too

An easy, inexpensive riff on the Improved Whiskey Cocktail.

In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about the Improved Whiskey Cocktail, a variation on the Whiskey Cocktail, which was a predecessor to the Old Fashioned. It added absinthe and maraschino liqueur to the basic three-ingredient Old Fashioned template.

The improvements in the Improved version were just additions, small portions of highly characteristic — one might even say charismatic — booze that added layers to the original drink.

In the hundred and fifty or so years since the dawn of the Improved Whiskey Cocktail, adding interesting layers in this manner has become one of the primary methods of varying the Old Fashioned format. You take a simple cocktail structure — whiskey! sugar! bitters! — and then you add a little something, or several little somethings, that give it a bit more pizazz. 

Alternatively, you can take that already pizazzed drink and replace the main ingredient(s) while keeping the modifiers in place. Indeed, that’s how the original Improved Whiskey Cocktail was written up — as a variation on the Improved Brandy Cocktail, the recipe for which appeared on the previous page. 

If it was good enough for the high-falutin’ cocktail impresarios of the late 1800s, it’s good enough for the home bar now. 

We’ll make a few adjustments, including a bitters combo, a demerara gum syrup, and an orange peel for garnish instead of a lemon. But the basic idea remains the same.

The biggest choice you’ll have to make is which brandy to use. You have many options. But I have a specific — and to longtime readers, familiar — recommendation.

Inexpensive but surprisingly serviceable American brandy remains one of the most underrated elements in the kingdom of cocktails. I don’t want to overstate the case: E&J XO and VSOP are not the finest of fine brandies. They lack a certain subtlety and depth. This is not my preferred neat sip of brandy.

And yet — these brandies are far better than they should be for the price, especially when dressed up for a cocktail. They form the base in my Thanksgiving sour, and I occasionally surprise guests with E&J-based cocktails when I tell them what they’re drinking. I use this stuff in real drinks, in real life.

These bottles are sold at nearly every liquor store in America at prices so low they barely rate saving the receipt. You can sometimes find liter bottles for $14. It’s not quite free. But for home bartenders, good-enough bottom-shelf American brandy is the closest the booze world has to too-cheap-to-meter energy.

For an elevated weeknight drink like the Improved Brandy Cocktail, good enough is often the way to go. 

Improved Brandy Cocktail 

• 1 dash orange bitters

• 1 dash Angostura aromatic bitters 

• 1 teaspoon rich 2:1 demerara syrup* (or demerara gum syrup) 

• ¼ teaspoon absinthe 

• 1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur, preferably Luxardo 

• 2 ounces brandy, such as E&J XO or VSOP¹ 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. 

2. Add ice, then stir until chilled. 

3. Strain into a rocks glass over a large piece of ice. 

4. Garnish with an orange peel. 

*2:1 demerara syrup: Combine two parts demerara sugar and one part water, by weight — so for example 400 grams sugar and 200 grams water — in a blender. Blend on high until thoroughly integrated. Bottle and store in the fridge. Keeps for a month or more.

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1. If you want a fancier brandy that still doesn’t break the bank, try Torres 15, which you can usually find for around $40. It’s a Spanish brandy that’s a bit more dry and considerably more subtle than the American E&J, and it works very well in this drink.