Old Fashioned cocktail recipe from the Irish Whiskey Museum

What better day than today to learn how to make a delicious Old Fashioned with Irish whiskey from the experts at Dublin's Irish Whiskey Museum?

Located right in the heart of Dublin City, across from Trinity College, the Irish Whiskey Museum celebrates the history of "uisce beatha", aka the water of life, and its recent status as a global phenomenon. 

It's a timely moment for the world's first museum dedicated to Irish whiskey. When the museum opened in 2014, you could count the number of operating distilleries and visitor centers on the island of Ireland on one hand. Now there are 40 working distilleries on the island. 

The Irish Whiskey Museum, being independent of all distilleries, offers visitors the opportunity to taste and experience some of the many varieties of Irish whiskey. 

The Old Fashioned cocktail was first invented in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1880s before making its way to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, where it became famous. It is simple yet delicious, made by muddling sugar and bitters with whiskey and garnishing with a twist of citrus rind. 

Here's the Irish Whiskey Museum's take: 

Old Fashioned

• Old fashioned glass, chilled
• Brown sugar ( 1 teaspoon)  
• Angostura bitters (2 dashes) 
• 50ml (approx 1.5 oz) of Copper Pot 

Instructions: 

1. Add sugar, whiskey, and bitters into stirring glass w ice.   

2. Stir with bar spoon to dissolve sugar and melt the ice. Approx 20 stirs. Taste test 

3. Add fresh ice, Stir again & test.  

4. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.  

5. Garnish with an orange twist, twist to release oils over rim of glass.  

For more information visit www.IrishWhiskeyMuseum.ie.

* Originally published in April 2020. Updated in 2023.