Smoked Old Fashioned

Bourbon, demerara, Angostura, and a glass cloche of applewood smoke. The Old Fashioned for nights when subtlety is not what is needed.

Why you are pouring this tonight

The Smoked Old Fashioned is the cocktail bars charge thirty dollars for and people pay it because it arrives at the table under a small glass cloche full of smoke that lifts as the bartender gestures, like a magic trick written by a man who has been to a steakhouse exactly once. The first time I saw one served, in a bar in Surry Hills that has since changed its name twice, I watched four people lean toward the table and produce the same small involuntary noise of approval. The drink itself is a regular bourbon Old Fashioned. The theatre is the smoke. The math is generous.

The good news is that you can do this at home for the cost of a small wood-burning smoker (around $30 from a barbecue shop) and a few applewood chips ($8 for a bag that lasts two years). The bourbon should be Knob Creek or Buffalo Trace, the demerara should be a syrup you make from raw demerara sugar and water in a 1:1 ratio, and the bitters should be Angostura, three dashes, no negotiation. The smoke can be applewood, hickory, or cherry; cherry is the polite one, hickory is the brawler, applewood is the diplomat that does the most work for the least insistence.

Build in the glass over a single large clear rock of ice. Stir, smoke under cloche for ninety seconds, lift, drink. The whole pour-and-perform takes about three minutes and is the most fun you can have making a cocktail without breaking anything.

What to pour it alongside

A grilled steak, a slow-roast leg of lamb, a board of aged cheeses with a little dried fig. Anything with smoke or fat in the cooking technique. The applewood note shakes hands with whatever just came off the grill and the bourbon does the rest. Skip with anything subtle. This drink is not subtle and will eat the dinner.

Notes from the kitchen

Make the demerara syrup on Sunday morning and store it in a glass bottle in the fridge for two weeks. Equal weight raw demerara sugar and water, brought to a simmer, stirred until dissolved, off the heat, cooled. Use a single large rock of ice, ideally a hand-cut block from a tray of distilled water frozen slowly in a small esky. Tray-cube ice melts too fast and turns the drink into a watery rumour by the time the smoke clears. Express the orange peel skin-down over the drink before adding the smoke; the citrus oils want to land on the surface, not be muscled aside by woodsmoke. The cloche is the easy bit; turn an old wine glass upside down over the cocktail glass, fill with smoke from a smoker gun for ninety seconds, lift at the table.

Two things that go wrong

Drink tastes like an ashtray

You over-smoked. Ninety seconds is the cap. Three minutes turns the cocktail into a campfire and not a flattering one. Less wood, more time-keeping.

No smoke when the cloche lifts

The smoke escaped. Seal the cloche tight against the bar surface. Use a smoker gun, not a kitchen torch on a wood chip; the kitchen torch produces smoke for about six seconds and embarrassment for the next ninety.

Variations worth knowing

Leftovers and make ahead

You cannot make this in advance. Smoke does not bottle. Build to order, smoke to order, drink to order. The demerara syrup is the thing you can prep ahead; everything else is theatre and theatre does not save.

The recipe

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