Cocktails the Old Fashioned Way
Cocktail: 'Old Fashioned' Bar Tender: Tom Wood Location: Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney One of the best places to relax with a cocktail in Sydney, Australia - especially with the return of the great jazz pianist David Paquette. The inimitable combination of jazz and cocktails - the evolution of juxtaposed melodies drift through the air like syncopations of Shakespeare peering through the rain Ingredients: 
- 2 oz whisky
- Bitters (Angostura)
- 1 x sugar cube
- 1 x cherry
- 1 x slice orange (and zest)
- ice cubes
- Old Fashioned Glass (Short and Wide tumbler with straight sides)
Method (Tom Wood):
- Soak sugar cube soaked in bitters over serviette.
- Add saturated cube to base of glass with 1 tsp. water and muddle well. (may add zest of orange to muddle mixture for increased taste intensity)
- Add 1 oz whisky and stir
- Continue to stir whilst adding the rest of the whisky and ice cubes
- Finish with orange slice and cherry with a twist of lemon
- Serve with a swizzle stick - and a smile.
Controversy:
- Blended versus single malt whisky
- I prefer Talisker or Oban as single malts and Highland Park as superior blended malt
- 'Fruit' or 'no fruit'
- Some mixers ardently argue against the use of fruit; others agree that orange and cherry are essential but that the lemon is over the top and others still argue that the orange zest and cherry be added to the muddling process to add further taste
- Personally I enjoy Toms method: the addition of lemon is by no means over the top but instead serves to enhance the vibrant combination of the cherry and orange; the addition of the orange zest to the initial muddle mix further intensifies the experience and the use of a moderate single malt increases olfactory satisfaction
