The Spirit
Clean Oak Barrel Aged Gin — our gin, rested in small ex-whisky casks. Vanilla, caramel, oak and juniper all in the same glass. It has no right to work this well.
What You'll Need — serves 1
- —60 ml Clean Oak Barrel Aged Gin
- —5 ml brown sugar syrup (or 1 tsp raw sugar dissolved in a dash of water)
- —3 dashes Angostura bitters
- —1 dash orange bitters
- —1 large ice sphere or block
- —Wide orange peel — for expressing
Glass: Heavy rocks glass, one large ice piece Garnish: Expressed orange peel
Instructions
- 1Add sugar syrup and both bitters to your rocks glass. Swirl to combine.
- 2Add the barrel-aged gin.
- 3Place your large ice piece in the glass.
- 4Stir slowly — 20 gentle rotations. The dilution is part of the drink. Don''t rush it.
- 5Hold a wide strip of orange peel skin-side down over the glass, give it a firm pinch — you''ll see the oils spray across the surface.
- 6Run the peel around the rim, then rest it on the ice or drape it over the side.
The Story
The Old Fashioned is built around the logic of whisky — spirit, sweetness, bitters, dilution. It turns out that same logic applies perfectly to barrel-aged gin. The cask time adds the vanilla and caramel notes that whisky achieves through years of maturation, but with the gin''s botanical backbone still present underneath.
This is a slow drink. Don''t rush it.
> A single large ice piece melts slower than cubes. The drink changes as it dilutes — both versions are worth experiencing.
