Does Anyone Drink Rye Whiskey?

[Bricktop]

I had my first Manhattan of the season on Thursday. Sadly the place I was at had no rye, so it was the (lesser, IMO) bourbon version.
But I did stumble upon a liquor store that had 3 bottles of Carpano Antica vermouth at $15.99, and I greedily snagged them all for
future marriage with rye in the comfort of my home. Unless I am spoiling myself, my house rye is Pikesville, which I stock up on when
I am in Baltimore.

 

[senoreme]

Recipe for a great 'Old Fashion' Please? Thanks.

 

[jmrtnko]

But I did stumble upon a liquor store that had 3 bottles of Carpano Antica vermouth at $15.99, and I greedily snagged them all...

16 bucks a bottle? Holy #$*@! Granted, it's not ridiculously expensive, but that's $10 less than the cheapest I can get it for.

-> Edit: I can't say this strongly enough. REFRIGERATE VERMOUTH ONCE YOU'VE OPENED IT! Should last about a month or so. If you need help finishing it, give me a call.

With the money you saved though, spring for a bottle of Rittenhouse 100. It's really only $20 or so, and much, much, much more able to stand up to Carpano than Pike.

 

[jmrtnko]

Recipe for a great 'Old Fashion' Please? Thanks.

Start simple. "Old-Fashioned" is a term from the late 1800s that refers to the original recipe for a "Cocktail" which was a specific drink, and not a category in the early 1800s. The original Cocktail recipe was simply a spirit (any spirit, really), sugar, bitters and water.

So a Whiskey Cocktail / Old-Fashioned could be as easy as:
2 oz. Rye
1/4 oz Simple Syrup
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Build in a rocks glass over ice, stir well and enjoy.

Now, once you've tasted the simple one, there's a whole lot you can try. You can easily vary any of the amounts. You can try different bitters. You can muddle a sugar cube with the bitters or a small amount of water instead of simple syrup. You could muddle in some orange peel or even an entire orange wheel with the sugar. You could make an "Improved" Whiskey Cocktail and add a 1/2 tsp of Maraschino. If you strain it and add a rinse of Absinthe, you've got a Sazerac. Hell, you can even swap out the rye for any other brown spirit. The possibilities are endless, but this experimentation and all the resulting variations are the reason people in 1870 felt the need to rename the original version the "Old-Fashioned." If you didn't, you never knew what you'd get.

Also, notice that there's no soda. None. Don't do it. Soda is just a bartender trick to mask insufficient shaking or stirring and make people feel like they're getting more liquor by overdiluting the drink. If you like it, great, but try it at least once without.

I like it as above, but with a flamed orange or lemon twist at the end. Have fun. It's a great drink to play around with.

 

[jamespowers]

Good explanation JM.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I tried the Russell's 6 year old Rye last night with cold (no ice) water. It's smoother than the Old Overholt but not up to Sazerac's taste. I got a bottle for $31.00 at Jacob's Liquor Exchange in Wichita KS. I haven't tried it with the Vernor's Ginger Ale yet, maybe tonight. The Old Overholt is still the best buy for the buck, and I love the Sazerac's.

later

 

[jamespowers]

Hi

I tried the Russell's 6 year old Rye last night with cold (no ice) water. It's smoother than the Old Overholt but not up to Sazerac's taste. I got a bottle for $31.00 at Jacob's Liquor Exchange in Wichita KS. I haven't tried it with the Vernor's Ginger Ale yet, maybe tonight. The Old Overholt is still the best buy for the buck, and I love the Sazerac's.

later

Nothing quite like Sazerac in its price range. :cheers1:

 

[D-503]

With the money you saved though, spring for a bottle of Rittenhouse 100. It's really only $20 or so, and much, much, much more able to stand up to Carpano than Pike.

The brown spirits guru at my local liquor store told me that there's currently a shortage of Rittenhouse. Anybody catch wind of it?

 

[Brad Bowers]

The brown spirits guru at my local liquor store told me that there's currently a shortage of Rittenhouse. Anybody catch wind of it?

That's pretty typical. Despite its low price, Rittenhouse has always been produced in small batches, so it vanishes from time to time, unfortunately. If I could only get hold of some Sazerac to tide me over, I'd be okay.

Brad

 

[jmrtnko]

The brown spirits guru at my local liquor store told me that there's currently a shortage of Rittenhouse. Anybody catch wind of it?

Rittenhouse 100 is an aged product (4 years if I remember correctly), so you're dealing with decisions made a while ago as well as demands today. It's also not really a big product for Heaven Hill, so they tend to use their whiskey reserves for other, more popular brands if they're short. I'm not a big RH drinker, but shortages have been common the last few years as rye has become more popular.

Russell's? Who knows. You'd think if anyone would have enough whiskey stock, it would be Wild Turkey. But then maybe it's similar to RH and all of it is going to Wild Turkey itself. The wife and I are "making do" with our liquor store's private bottling of Sazerac while we wait.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Nothing quite like Sazerac in its price range. :cheers1:

Correct.
It's about that time of the evening to combine three of their products in one glass......

 

[jamespowers]

Correct.
It's about that time of the evening to combine three of their products in one glass......

Ah, a Sazerac cocktail. I'll have one while you are at it. :cheers1:

 

[Atinkerer]

jmrtnko,

Your post on the Rx for an Old Fashioned was just great! A wonderful read, very informative. Thank you.

Tony

 

[jmrtnko]

Ah, a Sazerac cocktail. I'll have one while you are at it.

Eh, don't be fooled. You can make pretty much anything with Sazerac products. They own or distribute hundreds of brands.

We were working on a several new product labels for and a whole new identity for Barton Brands themselves but in the middle of the jobs, they up and sold some of the products we were working on to Constellation and then sold themselves off to Sazerac. It's an incredibly mutable and inbred industry.

 

[jmrtnko]

Your post on the Rx for an Old Fashioned was just great! A wonderful read, very informative. Thank you.

Excellent. But seriously, don't just stick with the recipe I posted. Try some of the other options I suggested. It's a wonderfully fun drink to experiment with. And try it with other spirits. It's great with whiskey, but also good with rum, brandy, gin, etc. It's combination of bitter and sweet is just one of the classic strategies to smooth out the bite of ethanol. Cheers!

 

[jamespowers]

Eh, don't be fooled. You can make pretty much anything with Sazerac products. They own or distribute hundreds of brands.

We were working on a several new product labels for and a whole new identity for Barton Brands themselves but in the middle of the jobs, they up and sold some of the products we were working on to Constellation and then sold themselves off to Sazerac. It's an incredibly mutable and inbred industry.

Sazerac has indeed become quite a far-flung company. I wouldn't substitute Rye for bourbon from them for a Sazerac cocktail though.
I am a Sazerac purist when it comes to using Rye. Then again, I make Manhattans and Old Fashioneds out of purely rye as well.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I am a Sazerac purist when it comes to using Rye. Then again, I make Manhattans and Old Fashioneds out of purely rye as well.

Good man! :eusa_clap

Brad

 

[jmrtnko]

I am a Sazerac purist when it comes to using Rye. Then again, I make Manhattans and Old Fashioneds out of purely rye as well.

Nah. If it's not Rye and Peychaud's, it's just not a Sazerac... (cough) though it was likely to originally be made with Cognac... (cough)

Manhattans? Eh, I could go either way. Everyone else did throughout it's history. I greatly prefer it with rye, but more importantly, it has to be 100-proof for me. I do half vermouth, so I just don't find it as balanced with an 80 (Bourbon, blended or Rye).

And "Old-Fashioned" really used to be more of a style of preparation than a specific drink, so that one's a bit more flexible. The drink we call an Old-Fashioned now, used to originally be ordered as an "Old-Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail." It wasn't until the 20th century that it became one specific recipe. That said, I usually reach for rye, but brandy and genever are also very, very nice.

Back to the Sazerac, have you ever tried The Bitter Truth's Creole Bitters? They're supposed to be more like the Peychaud's of 100 years ago. I haven't gotten around to it yet and was wondering if they're worth the shelf space.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Nah. If it's not Rye and Peychaud's, it's just not a Sazerac... (cough) though it was likely to originally be made with Cognac... (cough)

Back to the Sazerac, have you ever tried The Bitter Truth's Creole Bitters? They're supposed to be more like the Peychaud's of 100 years ago. I haven't gotten around to it yet and was wondering if they're worth the shelf space.

About the Sazerac cocktail, it seems that calling the drink a Sazerac first appeared in the era when Rye was first used, from what I've seen and heard. During the Cognac era it was simply called a cocktail.

The Bitter Truth stuff is nice, though I'd like to see Sazerac bring back this little gem in my collection....

And I always have some vintage things lying around the house for a Sazerac.

 

[jmrtnko]

About the Sazerac cocktail, it seems that calling the drink a Sazerac first appeared in the era when Rye was first used, from what I've seen and heard. During the Cognac era it was simply called a cocktail.
The Bitter Truth stuff is nice, though I'd like to see Sazerac bring back this little gem in my collection....

My understanding is that it was the house cocktail of the Sazerac Coffee House, and used Sazerac Brandy, so it was probably still known as a Sazerac cocktail. It just wasn't seen as it's own specific, proper name until after Sazerac got out of the brandy business and started marketing the cocktail outside of their own establishment.

Those Legendre bitters look very, very nice. Never tried them. Still usable?