26 Before 26: Drink an Old Fashioned

In my 26th year of life, I am attempting 26 new things that I’ve never done before. Full list here.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a beer and whiskey girl through and through. I keep a nice big bottle of Maker’s Mark on my desk, and the majority of the time my drink orders are either beer, Manhattan, Whiskey Ginger Ale, or Maker’s on the rocks. So it comes as a surprise to a lot of people that I have never had an Old Fashioned. So close to my beloved Manhattan, yet not quite.

People also find it surprising that it took me so long to knock this off the list. After all, I go out for drinks quite a bit. I frequent cocktail bars, and an Old Fashioned isn’t an obscure drink. When it comes to my list though, I have many lovely friends who see it and immediately put claims down on some of the things. So I’ve held out on a lot, saving them for certain people, certain times of year, certain events. But time’s a-wastin’, and I have a pretty hefty list on my hands.

But one of my oldest and dearest friends, Danguole, was coming to New York for a visit, and she laid claim to this one. Only because I love her so, I reserved it for her.

So D and I went bar hopping around the city. I decided to take her to Beauty Bar where for $10 you get a cocktail and a basic manicure. We plop down at the bar, and I announce that we want two Old Fashioneds and two manicures. The burly man behind the counter let out an overdramatic grunt, curled himself up into a ball behind the bar and started complaining that he couldn’t remember how to make an Old Fashioned. I felt bad and showed him the recipe on my phone, but he scoffed at me and sulked off to grab some glasses. He was the most pouty tattooed, 300+ pound man I have ever encountered, and when he plopped the drinks in front of us, our jaws were kind of on the ground.

Beauty Bar "Old Fashioned"?

Admittedly I have never had an Old Fashioned before, but what’s it doing in a martini glass? Why is it pink? Was that a Vodka bottle I saw him pouring into the shaker? D, who has more experience with the Old Fashioned than me, confirmed my suspicions. It was not an Old Fashioned. Not at all. Not even close. We don’t know what it was.

So after getting our manicures from two heavily coked-out beauticians (it was a weird and interesting night indeed), we headed to a couple of other bars, eventually landing at Raines Law Room.

Raines is one of my favorite bars in the city. It’s a speakeasy, but not too speakeasy. No real gimmicks, just a dimly lit bar with dashing bartenders and amazing cocktails.

Raines Old Fashioned.

Now that’s more like it. It was fantastic. It had that good punch of whiskey, tempered by citrus notes. We ordered a couple more fancy shmancy cocktails and eventually ended up at a dive bar with some not so fancy shmancy drinks. But the night of my first Old Fashioned was one to remember.

Tags: Beauty Bar, bucket list, Cocktails, liquor, Raines Law Room, speakeasy, whiskey