Improved Whiskey Cocktail

Recipe: Improved Whiskey Cocktail (serves one)

• 2 oz. whiskey
• 1/2 tsp. maraschino liqueur
• 1/8 tsp. Pernod liqueur
• 2 dashes (= 1/4 tsp.) Angostura bitters
• 1 tsp. extra fine sugar + 1 tsp. water (or use 1 tsp. simple syrup)
• lemon twist

Add sugar, water, bitters, and liqueurs to a cocktail shaker. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add ice and whiskey, and stir again. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

This recipe is adapted from the 1876 edition of Jerry Thomas’s book How to Mix Drinks. For the original recipe, replace Pernod with absinthe. This cocktail was created as an “improved” version of the Old Fashioned, and used the then-very-fashionable absinthe and maraschino.