Spirit-forward and bracing, this is an Old Fashioned's whiskey, sugar and bitters dressed up with a whisper of maraschino and a single dash of absinthe over an expressed lemon peel. Shaken hard and served up in a coupe, it keeps the rye's spice out front while the cherry liqueur rounds the edges and a faint breath of anise rises with the lemon oil.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Stirred · Coupe · Up
add
Add the rye whiskey, simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, absinthe, and aromatic bitters to a shaker.
shake
Fill the shaker one-third with ice and shake well until chilled.
strain
Strain into a chilled coupe.
express
Express the oil from a lemon peel over the surface of the drink.
garnish
Drop the expressed lemon peel into the glass.
No single bartender can claim it — by the 1860s, dressing up the plain whiskey cocktail with absinthe, maraschino and other European liqueurs had become standard practice. Jerry Thomas set the formula down in his 1887 Bar-Tender's Guide, where the entry simply sends the reader back to his Improved Brandy Cocktail and swaps bourbon or rye in for the brandy. That fashion for "improving" the drink eventually provoked a back-to-basics reply in the Old Fashioned, and the style stands as a forebear of both the Manhattan and the Sazerac.