Oaxaca Old Fashioned
Reposado tequila and mezcal, stirred with agave and bitters over a single cube.
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring. Dilution is modelled rather than measured, as a fraction of the poured volume before any ice; dotted figures descend from that estimate.
The producer's own product page states the bitters are 100% vegan and gluten-free.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
45 ml reposado tequila
15 ml mezcal
5 ml agave nectar
2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters (1.8 ml)Proprietary
1 orange (140 g)
- 45 ml reposado tequila
- 15 ml mezcal
- 5 ml agave nectar
- 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters (1.8 ml)Proprietary
- 1 orange (140 g)
- ~30 ml water
Glass
Vessel
97 ml of liquid plus 130 ml of block ice occupies about 227 ml, inside the 300 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 1m 35sChill a rocks glass and set a single large cube in it.
Combine the 45 ml reposado tequila, the 15 ml mezcal, the 5 ml agave nectar and the 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters (1.8 ml) in a mixing glass filled with cubed ice.
Stir for 25s, until the outside of the glass is frosted, and strain over the waiting cube.
Cut a 4 cm swathe of orange peel, warm it briefly skin-side down over a flame and hold it over the drink so the lit oil flares as it lands on the surface. Drop the peel in.
The twist is warmed and lit as it is expressed rather than simply squeezed, so the oil that lands on the surface arrives partly toasted. That extra note is what stands in for the char a mezcal gives the drink on its own, brought up rather than duplicated.
Common pitfallMezcal is a supporting measure here rather than the base, and doubling it to taste "more mezcal-forward" changes which spirit the drink actually is rather than intensifying this one.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
A modern Old Fashioned variation created by bartender Phil Ward at New York's Death & Co in 2007, replacing whiskey with reposado tequila and a measure of mezcal for smoke.
The drink has an unusually well-documented origin for its family: it was created by bartender Phil Ward for the opening menu of Death & Co in Manhattan's East Village in 2007 12. Both the bar's own account and an independent guide agree on the bartender, the bar and the year, which is a rarer alignment than it sounds for a cocktail this recent.
The name states the reasoning rather than hiding it. Mezcal is produced almost entirely around the city of Oaxaca, and the drink was built to put a then-unfamiliar spirit in front of American drinkers without asking them to give up tequila altogether; reposado tequila remains the larger of the two measures, with mezcal added as a smaller, smoke-carrying second spirit rather than a replacement for it 1. That structure follows the Old Fashioned's own template of a dominant spirit, a sweetener and a bitter element, with the mezcal doing double duty as the drink's one true departure from the shape.
The recipe has not stayed fixed since 2007. Aromatic bitters were the original bittering agent, but cocoa or chocolate bitters have since become a common substitution in bars serving the drink, a change credited to how well that flavour sits alongside a smoky spirit rather than to any correction of the original 2. The version served here keeps the original aromatic bitters rather than the later substitution, and finishes on a flamed orange twist, expressed and dropped in as both the bar's own published method and the independent recipe describe 1.
- 1Oaxaca Old-Fashioneddeathandcompanymarket.com
- 2Oaxaca Old-Fashioneddiffordsguide.com