A good Old Fashion is hard to beat. But I don't really have a 'go to', as I change based on the seasons or just on the occasional whim, but I re-acquainted myself with a cocktail I used to make many years ago in a bar I worked at. A Whiskey Sour, a tasty summer sipper in the heat of Texas. Simple, but really refreshing, and if you don't use egg white, you are really losing the textural component that is darn good. The only other out of the blue one I had recently was a Pimms Cup. I was walking by a 'quick sale rack' at a local liquor store and saw the bottle of Pimms, so I figured I had to take a trip down memory lane. My only change was using ginger beer instead of ginger ale, primarily because I think it has a much better ginger bite. The last kind of oddball was another one of those 'quick sale rack' refugees. They had a bottle of Metaxa 12 Star. 40 years ago I was working at a bar that also had a great smoke shop attached. A couple of regulars were enjoying a smoke and wanted me to make them something different. I came up with a Greek Old Fashion using Metaxa. I muddled orange zest with the sugar and bitters to bring more oil out, and served them up. Those old farts hammered those down like they were Fresca. 2/3s of a bottle we never used was gone. If you have a bottle and can't figure out what to do with it, try a Greek Old Fashion.
