Nashville Barrel Company · Cocktail Recipes
The oldest cocktail there is — and the truest test of a bourbon. Three ingredients, two minutes, and one step almost everyone skips. Here's the way we build it.
An Old Fashioned is mostly bourbon, so the bourbon has nowhere to hide. Get the spirit right and the rest is seasoning. Here's the exact spec we pour at the barrel — then the one move that separates a good one from a finished one.
1. Make the base. Drop the sugar cube into a rocks glass, add both bitters and a small splash of water, and muddle until the sugar dissolves into a paste — no grit left.
2. Add bourbon and ice. Pour in 2 oz of bourbon and add one large cube. Stir gently for 20–30 seconds — you're chilling and lightly diluting, not whipping it.
3. Express the peel. This is the step people skip. Pinch an orange peel skin-side down over the glass so the oils mist across the top, rub it on the rim, then drop it in.
4. Finish and serve. Add a brandied cherry if you like one, and drink it now, while the cube is still whole.
A guided flight through the single-barrel lineup — the fastest way to find the bourbon your Old Fashioned wants. Walk-ins welcome at both Nashville locations.
Book a Whiskey Flight · $352 oz bourbon to one sugar cube (or 1/4 oz Demerara syrup) and 2–3 dashes of bitters. The spirit leads — the sugar and bitters season it, they don't sweeten it.
A higher-proof, well-aged bourbon. The sugar and ice soften the drink, so a fuller-bodied single barrel holds its finish where a standard 80-proof pour thins out.
Stir, always. Shaking aerates and over-dilutes a spirit-forward drink and leaves it cloudy. Twenty to thirty seconds over one large cube gives you a clear, silky cocktail.
An Old Fashioned is whiskey, sugar, and bitters over ice. A Manhattan swaps the sugar for sweet vermouth and is served up, no ice. Same whiskey backbone, different season and serve.