Old Fashioned

Rabbit, Run, John Updike, 1960

1 sugar cube

2 drops of bitters

Splash of water

2 oz. bourbon

1 orange slice, for garnish

1 maraschino cherry, for garnish

Place the sugar cube in a rocks glass and saturate it with the bitters. Add the water and muddle.

Fill the glass with ice and add the bourbon.

Gently stir, garnish with the slice of orange and maraschino cherry, and enjoy.

“I was tired.”

“No wonder,” he says. “How many of those have you had?” He gestures at the Old-fashioned glass. Sugar has stained the side she drank from.

Rabbit, Run is the first of Updike’s novels about Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. The former high school basketball star, only in his twenties, fears that his best years are already behind him as he is stuck in a loveless marriage and a dead-end job. In this scene, one of many tense moments between him and his wife, Janice, he notices her heavy drinking, which is all the worse because she is pregnant with their second child.

Regardless of the novel’s dark themes, the Old Fashioned is a favorite in the cocktail world. Although it possibly dates to the early part of the nineteenth century, it got its name in the later part of that century, showing that people already thought of it as “old fashioned” by then!