Where Is New York City’s Best Old-Fashioned?

Cocktails hardly get any more simple or delicious than a properly executed Old-Fashioned. The classic cocktail dates back to the early 1800s, and has since become one of bartenders’ favorite templates to play around with. Over at First We Feast, booze writer Robert Simonson catalogues some of the best Old-Fashioneds found in New York City. While you can find the classic version at stalwart establishments like Pegu Club, Lantern’s Keep and Dutch Kills, the city is a playground of modernized, inventive variations. Creativity ahoy.

PDT offers its signature bacon fat-infused Benton’s Old-Fashioned. Prime Meats makes its version with housemade pear bitters, which “delivers a bright, unusual accent to the whiskey quite apart from the usual Angostura Bitters.” Death & Co. switches out whiskey for a combination of tequila and mezcal, which imparts “an earthy, smokey character.”

And notable, not necessarily for its creativity, but rather its value is Rye’s OFs are $5 during happy hour—“So shut up and drink,” writes Simonson. [First We Feast] [Photo: Daniel Krieger]