Our Favourite Mixologists
Five bartenders who understand that the Old Fashioned is not a recipe. It is a philosophy. Gerald on the masters of the classic cocktail.
"The Old Fashioned is the most honest drink in the world. There is nowhere to hide."
— Dale DeGroff, King Cocktail
The Old Fashioned is the oldest cocktail in the world. It is also the hardest to make well. Not because the recipe is complicated — it isn't — but because there is nothing in it to hide behind. Whiskey, sugar, bitters, ice, and a piece of orange peel. That is it. Every decision the bartender makes is visible in the glass.
This is why the Old Fashioned is the test. Ask for one at any bar in the world and you will learn, within thirty seconds, whether the person behind the stick knows what they are doing. Are they muddling fruit? (Wrong.) Are they using a pre-made mix? (Very wrong.) Are they shaking it? (Please leave.) Or are they stirring, slowly and deliberately, with the kind of focused attention that suggests they understand that this drink is not a vehicle for showing off — it is a vehicle for the whiskey?
Gerald has been drinking Old Fashioneds for a long time. Here are five bartenders who have never once made one wrong.
Dale DeGroff
King Cocktail
New York City, USA · 1980s–present
If there is a single person responsible for the cocktail renaissance, it is Dale DeGroff. Working at the Rainbow Room in New York from 1987 to 1999, he did something that sounds simple but was, at the time, revolutionary: he made drinks properly. Fresh juice. Quality spirits. Classic recipes treated with respect. He called it the craft cocktail movement before anyone had a name for it.
"The Old Fashioned is the most honest drink in the world. There is nowhere to hide."
Photo: PUNCH
Dale DeGroff's Old Fashioned
DeGroff's Old Fashioned is the standard against which all others are measured. He uses a sugar cube muddled with Angostura bitters, a splash of soda, and a generous pour of rye — stirred, never shaken, over a large ice cube, finished with a flamed orange peel that leaves a faint scorch on the glass. It is, in his hands, a lesson in restraint.
Photo: Imbibe Magazine
Audrey Saunders
The Godmother of the Craft Cocktail Movement
New York City, USA · 1990s–present
Audrey Saunders opened Pegu Club in New York City in 2005 and, in doing so, created the template for every serious cocktail bar that followed. She had trained under Dale DeGroff. She had the precision of a scientist and the palate of a poet. Pegu Club became the school from which an entire generation of bartenders graduated.
"Every great cocktail is a conversation between the spirit and everything else in the glass. The Old Fashioned is the shortest, most eloquent conversation there is."
Audrey Saunders's Old Fashioned
Saunders approaches the Old Fashioned as a study in balance. She is known for her insistence on quality bitters — often making her own — and for the discipline of her stir: exactly the right number of rotations to achieve dilution without over-chilling. Her version is a masterclass in the idea that less is always more.
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Charles Joly
Diageo World Class Global Champion 2014
Chicago, USA · 2000s–present
Charles Joly is the only American to have won the Diageo World Class Global Bartender of the Year title — the most prestigious competition in the industry. He did it in 2014, representing Chicago, and he has spent the years since proving it was no accident. He is the founder of Crafthouse Cocktails, a James Beard Award semi-finalist, and the official bartender of the Academy Awards.
"The Old Fashioned is the bartender's handshake. Make it well and you've said everything you need to say."
Photo: Chicago Food Magazine
Charles Joly's Old Fashioned
Joly's Old Fashioned reflects his competition background: technically flawless, beautifully presented, and built around the idea that every element must earn its place. He favours a high-rye bourbon, a demerara syrup rather than a sugar cube, and a single large ice sphere that melts slowly and evenly. The garnish is a wide orange peel, expressed over the glass and then draped along the rim.
Photo: PUNCH
Ryan Chetiyawardana
Mr Lyan — The Innovator
London, UK · 2010s–present
Ryan Chetiyawardana — known universally as Mr Lyan — is the most intellectually rigorous bartender working today. Born in Birmingham to Sri Lankan parents, he studied fine art and then biology and philosophy before turning to bartending with the same curiosity he brought to everything else. His bars — Dandelyan, Lyaness, Super Lyan — have been named the World's Best Bar multiple times.
"The Old Fashioned is a framework, not a recipe. The best version is the one that makes sense in the context of where you are and who you're with."
Ryan Chetiyawardana's Old Fashioned
Chetiyawardana's approach to the Old Fashioned is characteristically thoughtful. He has written extensively about the cocktail's history and the way different whiskeys interact with different sweeteners and bitters. His version often features unexpected elements — a house-made bitters blend, a clarified spirit, a garnish that tells a story — while remaining, at its core, recognisably an Old Fashioned.
Jillian Vose
Beverage Director, The Dead Rabbit
New York City, USA · 2010s–present
Jillian Vose is the Beverage Director and Managing Partner at The Dead Rabbit in Lower Manhattan — a bar that has been named the World's Best Bar and is widely considered the finest whiskey bar in New York. She is the co-author of Paddy Drinks, the definitive guide to modern Irish whiskey cocktails. She has built her reputation on an encyclopaedic knowledge of whiskey and a commitment to hospitality that is, by all accounts, extraordinary.
"A great Old Fashioned is about the whiskey. Everything else is just framing."
Photo: PUNCH
Jillian Vose's Old Fashioned
Vose's Old Fashioned variations — including the Black Rose, an Old Fashioned built on Irish whiskey with black walnut bitters — are among the most celebrated in New York. She approaches the drink with a whiskey-first philosophy: the spirit is the point, and everything else is in service of it. Her technique is precise, her palate is exceptional, and her hospitality is the kind that makes you feel like the most important person in the room.
The stir: 20–30 rotations, always clockwise. Photo: Cocktail Contessa
The Art of the Stir
Every bartender on this list will tell you the same thing: the Old Fashioned is stirred, never shaken. The stir is not merely a technique — it is a philosophy. It is the difference between a drink that is bruised and one that is integrated. Between a drink that is cold and one that is perfectly diluted.
The ideal stir is 20 to 30 rotations, always in the same direction, with a bar spoon that touches the inside of the mixing glass. The ice should be large and clear — cloudy ice contains air and melts faster, over-diluting the drink. The glass should be chilled. The garnish should be expressed — the oils from the orange peel flamed or twisted over the surface of the drink — not merely dropped in.
These are not rules invented by pedants. They are the accumulated wisdom of bartenders who have spent decades learning what makes a drink taste better. The five mixologists on this list follow them not because they are told to, but because they understand why.
The kind of bar where the Old Fashioned is always right. Photo: ELLE Decor
The smoked Old Fashioned: a modern variation that still respects the original. Photo: Vindulge
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Gerald's Scorecard
Our Favourite Mixologists — Old Fashioned Edition
Gerald's Take
Here is what I have learned from drinking Old Fashioneds in the company of great bartenders: the drink tells you everything about the person making it. Not just their technique — though technique matters enormously — but their attitude. Do they rush? Do they cut corners? Do they reach for the pre-made bitters mix? Or do they slow down, pay attention, and treat the glass in front of them as if it is the only thing in the room that matters?
The five bartenders on this list all have the second quality. They are, in their different ways, people who understand that hospitality is not a transaction. It is a gift. The Old Fashioned is the purest expression of that gift: a drink that takes three minutes to make properly, that costs the same as a mediocre beer, and that, in the right hands, is one of the finest things you can put in a glass.
If you ever find yourself in New York, London, Chicago, or Oslo, and one of these names is behind the bar: order the Old Fashioned. Sit down. Take your time. This is exactly the right place to be.
That is the best day ever. And it starts with a single, perfect glass.