1. 25 Aug


    A friend told me that August 25th is National Whiskey Sour Day. Conveniently, Dave Wondrich just wrote something about sours, which can go so so right, or so so wrong: …The sour is machined to a finer tolerance than other drinks, so it takes a little management. Like this: Although most bartenders these days balance out the citrus with an equal portion of simple syrup — a 50-50 mix of sugar and water — what you want to use is granulated sugar. If you look through old bar books, you’ll notice that the pre-Prohibition masters of the art, although fully versed in the use of simple syrup, made sours with plain sugar. There’s a reason for that. A drink with superfine sugar stirred into lemon juice is clean and vibrant. A modern drink with, say, three quarters of an ounce each of citrus juice and syrup has a slick, almost plastic texture. Score one for the wisdom of the ancients. So…go enjoy a whiskey sour…or one of its cousins: daiquiri, Tom Collins, margarita, or sidecar. 

    A friend told me that August 25th is National Whiskey Sour Day.

    Conveniently, Dave Wondrich just wrote something about sours, which can go so so right, or so so wrong:

    …The sour is machined to a finer tolerance than other drinks, so it takes a little management. Like this:

    Although most bartenders these days balance out the citrus with an equal portion of simple syrup — a 50-50 mix of sugar and water — what you want to use is granulated sugar. If you look through old bar books, you’ll notice that the pre-Prohibition masters of the art, although fully versed in the use of simple syrup, made sours with plain sugar.

    There’s a reason for that. A drink with superfine sugar stirred into lemon juice is clean and vibrant. A modern drink with, say, three quarters of an ounce each of citrus juice and syrup has a slick, almost plastic texture. Score one for the wisdom of the ancients.

    So…go enjoy a whiskey sour…or one of its cousins: daiquiri, Tom Collins, margarita, or sidecar.