This Low-Proof Sipper Makes Cocchi Americano the Star

A stirred-and-boozy, choose-your-own-adventure cocktail that drinks like a low-ABV Old Fashioned.

I enjoy non-alcoholic cocktails quite a bit, but I’ve never had a zero-proof drink that replicates the taste, feel, and overall sensation of a well-made Old Fashioned. It’s a singular drink—strong, sweet, and spicy, chilled and diluted by a big hunk of ice.

But I have had a few lower-proof drinks that come close to replicating the feel and sensation, if not the precise flavor profile, of an Old Fashioned. This week’s cocktail is one of them.

It’s also one of the very best new-to-me cocktails I’ve tried in the last year.

It’s a drink I have made at least a dozen times since last spring. I’ve put it on party menus, made it for friends, and toyed around with its surprisingly flexible formula in any number of ways. It might be the new-to-me drink I’ve made most often over the last twelve months.

I obviously enjoy all the recipes I put in this newsletter, but I enjoy some more than others. And this is one of the drinks I have enjoyed most of all.

Once again, it uses Cocchi Americano, the fortified, aromatized, vermouth-like aperitif wine I’ve been making the case for all month. In fact, it’s mostly Cocchi Americano, plus a little bit of bitters and, in its standard form, Jamaican rum. That’s it. Just three ingredients. It’s incredibly easy to make.

In previous newsletters, we have looked at drinks that use Cocchi Americano as a modifier, a complement, a supporting player.

In this drink, however, it’s the base ingredient. This cocktail makes Cocchi Americano the star of the show.

Cocchi Americano’s versatility is one reason why we are spending an entire month on Cocchi Americano drinks. It’s adaptable. It’s nimble. It can play many parts and many roles.

And since Cocchi Americano is a wine—albeit a wine fortified with some additional spirit—that means the primary ingredient in this drink is just 16.5 percent ABV. A conventional whiskey Old Fashioned, in contrast, uses a base ingredient that's at least 40 percent ABV, and frequently more like 50 percent.

So you can think of this as a sort of Old Fashioned light—a lower-proof, slow-and-satisfying sipper, served on the rocks. It’s delicious—gently bitter, just a little bit sweet with no added sugar or syrup, and a warming, earthy, intriguing spice profile that hints of saffron, ginger, and vanilla.

It’s not an Old Fashioned, but it can function as an Old Fashioned replacement, a backup player that brings a different background and resume to the job.

Served over a big hunk of ice, it captures the vibe of an Old Fashioned, the essential pleasure of that drink and its core appeal—but with a Spring-friendly, transition-weather lightness. This is a drink for when you want an Old Fashioned that is not quite an Old Fashioned, a slow-sipping, stirred-and-boozy drink that doesn’t hit quite as hard.

And, like last week’s Irish whiskey cocktail, it can also be a choose-your-own-adventure drink that allows you to pick not only from a number of different rums, but from a wide variety of spirits to complement the Cocchi Americano.

Part of the case for Cocchi Americano is that it can play many parts. But it’s also that it gets along well with many partners. The choose-your-own-adventure component of this week’s drink will show you just how versatile Cocchi Americano really is.

Rum, Lola, Rum

Technically, however, this cocktail is not an Old Fashioned, at least not structurally. It’s closer to a Manhattan, or, really, a reverse Manhattan, like several of the cocktails we looked at earlier this year.

But where those drinks read more or less like Manhattans—they were whiskey + vermouth drinks served up—this one is served over ice, which makes a big difference in how it comes across. It also has a somewhat smaller form-factor, coming in at just 2 ¼ ounces before dilution, which further contributes to the Old Fashioned feel.

We’ll start with the recipe, then go over the options and modifications.