Whiskey Sour, Properly Strained

Drinks

Spirited

Whiskey Sour, Properly Strained

Double-strained, no foam shortcuts. The classic 1862 recipe.

Time

8 min

Makes

1 cocktail

Difficulty

Medium

Glass

Coupe

Citrus Stirred Crowd

Ingredients

2 oz bourbon 1 oz fresh lemon juice 3/4 oz rich simple syrup (2:1 sugar:water) 2 dashes Angostura bitters 1 maraschino cherry, for garnish

Make it spirited

Bourbon, not rye, is traditional. Buffalo Trace or Woodford Reserve are the workhorses; for a richer drink, try a high-rye bourbon like Four Roses Single Barrel.

Method

Chill the coupe: fill with ice water while you make the drink.

Combine the bourbon, lemon juice, simple syrup, and bitters in a shaker. Fill with cubed ice.

Shake hard for 15 seconds. The shaker should frost over.

Double-strain: place a Hawthorne strainer on the shaker, and hold a fine-mesh strainer over the coupe. Pour through both.

Discard the ice water from the coupe. Garnish with a maraschino cherry on a pick.

From the kitchen

Double-strain, always. A single-strain leaves ice chips that dilute the drink in the glass.

Story so far

The 2:1:1 ratio is the starting point: 2 oz bourbon, 1 oz lemon, 1 oz simple syrup. But the syrup matters: a 1:1 sugar-water is sweet enough to flatten the drink; a 1:1.5 syrup (or a 2:1 rich syrup) lets the bourbon's heat through. We use rich syrup. The shaking step is critical: shake hard for 15 seconds with cubed ice, then double-strain into a chilled coupe. The double-strain catches the ice chips that the Hawthorne lets through, giving the drink a clarity that a single-strain can't match.