The Smoked Old Fashioned is theatre.

Why you are pouring this tonight

The Smoked Old Fashioned is what bars do when they want to charge twenty-eight dollars for an Old Fashioned and put a small theatrical fire on the table. The drink is built normally, then a glass cloche is filled with applewood smoke from a smoking gun and inverted over the drink for thirty seconds before serving. The smoke clings to the surface oils and the drink tastes like a campfire that did not get out of hand.

The smoking gun is the only piece of kit you need. Polyscience or Breville sell them, around 200 dollars, available at any decent kitchen shop. Applewood, hickory or pecan chips. Build the Old Fashioned normally over a single big rock (Knob Creek 12 if you have it, Buffalo Trace if you don’t), drape a glass cloche over the top, smoke for thirty seconds, lift the cloche at the table just before drinking. The expressed orange peel goes on after the smoke, not before. Pair with smoked brisket, charred steak, anything that has spent time on charcoal.

What changes from the Old Fashioned

Same drink, but served under a smoked dome. Applewood or cherrywood chips are the Australian pick.

What to pour it alongside

Smoked meats, aged gouda, or alone by a fire.

The recipe