Whiskey Cocktails
77 recipes, page 1 of 4
This Field Manual holds 77 recipes built on whiskey: 24 bourbon, 22 rye, 17 Scotch, 8 Irish, 3 Tennessee and 3 Welsh. The spelling follows the country. Irish and American distillers write whiskey, Scotch writes whisky, and this page uses one word for all of them.
They are not interchangeable. Bourbon is sweet and broad, and it fills out a drink that needs body, which is why an Old Fashioned built on bourbon tastes rounder than the same drink built on rye. Tennessee whiskey is made much the same way and then filtered through sugar maple charcoal before it is barrelled, which softens it and is why Jack Daniel’s is not sold as a bourbon. Rye is drier and peppery, and it keeps its edge against sweet vermouth, which is what a Manhattan is asking for. Scotch carries smoke or sea salt depending on where it was made, and a peated bottle will take over anything delicate. Irish whiskey is lighter than either American style and suits a long drink or a hot one.
What counts as whiskey here
Base Spirit
Difficulty Level
Affinity
The Affinity is Scotch and both vermouths in equal thirds, with Angostura. Thirty millilitres of each, stirred, up. Equal thirds is the part worth noticing. A Rob Roy is Scotch
Algonquin
The Algonquin carries the name of the hotel where the Round Table sharpened its knives. Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and the rest of the Vicious Circle
Almond Old Fashioned
The Almond Old Fashioned is a bourbon Old Fashioned with amaretto in place of the sugar, and the swap does more than sweeten. Amaretto is built on apricot kernels rather than
American Trilogy
The American Trilogy is an Old Fashioned with two spirits in it, and the split is doing more than adding flavour. Applejack was America's first spirit, distilled from orchards
Autumn Gold
The Autumn Gold is a Field Manual serve written for October: bourbon and apple brandy splitting the base, fresh lemon and maple syrup running the sour arithmetic, and two dashes
Black Manhattan
The Black Manhattan asks a simple heretical question: what if the vermouth were replaced entirely by amaro? Todd Smith posed it at Bourbon and Branch in San Francisco in 2005,
Blinker
The Blinker is rye, grapefruit juice and grenadine, and it is one of very few classic sours where grapefruit does the whole job on its own. Lemon is the default for a reason: it
Blood & Sand
The Blood & Sand was created to coincide with the 1922 Rudolph Valentino film of the same name and appeared in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930. It is one of a very
Blue Blazer
The Blue Blazer is the origin myth of bartending as performance. Jerry Thomas’s signature was blazing Scotch thrown in a flaming arc between two silver-plated mugs, the trick that
Bobby Burns
The Bobby Burns is the Rob Roy with a library card: Scotch and sweet vermouth as before, seasoned with a barspoon of Bénédictine, the honeyed herbal liqueur of the Norman abbeys,
Boulevardier
The Boulevardier was created by Erskine Gwynne, an American expatriate writer in 1920s Paris who published a monthly magazine of the same name for the city’s American community.
Brooklyn
The Brooklyn is a dry Manhattan with two seasonings: a barspoon of maraschino and a barspoon of Amer Picon. Jacob Grohusko printed it in Jack's Manual in 1908, and it is the drink
Brown Derby
The Brown Derby is 1930s Hollywood in three ingredients. It was created at the Vendôme Club on Sunset Boulevard, the film colony’s lunch canteen, and named in neighbourly tribute
Cameron’s Kick
Cameron’s Kick is a sour that should not work twice over. The base is split between Scotch and Irish whiskey, a pairing neither island has ever requested, and the sweetener is
Diamondback
The Diamondback is three strong bottles and nothing else: rye, calvados and yellow Chartreuse, stirred and served up. There is no citrus, no sugar and no soda. Whatever softening
Dragon’s Breath
The Dragon’s Breath is our long drink for St David’s Day: Penderyn and honey syrup built over ice in a highball, topped with ginger beer and finished with a squeezed lime wedge.
Dublin Mule
The Dublin Mule is the Irish reading of the Moscow Mule: Irish whiskey built over ice with fresh lime and simple syrup, topped with ginger beer and finished with mint and a lime
Fancy Free
The Fancy Free is an Old Fashioned that uses maraschino liqueur instead of sugar. Rye, 15ml of maraschino, and two kinds of bitters. That is the entire drink. The swap does more
Fireside Punch
The Fireside Punch is our batch answer to Bonfire Night: bourbon, apple cider, fresh lemon, maple syrup and water heated gently with cinnamon sticks, star anise and orange wheels,
Ginger Snap
The Ginger Snap is warming spice in refreshing form: a bourbon highball where fresh lemon and cinnamon syrup sit under a fiery ginger beer, finished with a cinnamon stick. It is a
Godfather
The Godfather is Scotch and amaretto over ice at two to one, and there is nothing else in it. It came out of the 1970s two-bottle wave along with the French Connection, which is
Gold Rush
The Gold Rush was invented at Milk and Honey, the Lower East Side bar that rewrote modern cocktail culture, when T.J. Siegal asked Sasha Petraske for a whiskey sour and got talked
Green Batched Punch
The Green Batched Punch is a crowd solution written for parties where individual cocktails are impractical: Irish whiskey, fresh lime, simple syrup and blue curaçao over a base of
Harvest Mule
The Harvest Mule is autumn’s answer to the Moscow Mule: bourbon in place of vodka, apple cider syrup in place of plain sugar, fresh lime and a fiery ginger beer over ice in a