Brown-Butter Old Fashioned Recipe

The classic Old Fashioned cocktail gets an update with toasty, nutty browned butter, which adds richness while mellowing things out.

By
Sohla El-Waylly
Sohla El-Waylly

Sohla El-Waylly is a culinary creator, video host, and CIA graduate whose work can be found on Serious Eats, Bon Appetit, The New York Times, Food52, YouTube, and more.

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Updated May 30, 2019
2018-08-06-1--2
Vicky Wasik

Why It Works

  • Washing the bourbon with butter infuses it with the alcohol-soluble aromatics in the fat.
  • Premixing the cocktail makes it simple for guests to serve themselves.

If you love a classic Old Fashioned, this rich, butter-enhanced twist will be right up your alley. Fat-washing is a simple process that infuses liquor with all the alcohol-soluble flavors in fat. It's a great trick to fancify any not-so-great whiskey into something smooth and rich. As a bonus, the butter becomes flavored with spicy notes of bourbon, perfect for your next batch of shortbread or for basting a pan-seared steak.

This recipe is for a batched drink, which transforms the whole bottle of whiskey into 12 cocktails, so guests can help themselves throughout an evening. Feel free to multiply the batch as needed.

Recipe Details

Brown-Butter Old Fashioned Recipe

Active 30 mins
Total 90 mins
Serves 12 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 bottle bourbon (25 ounces; 750ml)

  • 1 cup butter (8 ounces; 224g)

  • 1/4 cup turbinado sugar (2 ounces; 60g)

  • 24 to 36 dashes bitters

Directions

  1. For the Bourbon: Pour bourbon into a freezer-safe, resealable plastic container. In a small saucepot over medium heat, melt butter and stir with a whisk until the solids brown, about 5 minutes. Immediately whisk butter into bourbon. Cover and freeze until butter rises to the top and solidifies, at least 1 hour and up to overnight.

  2. Remove butter from bourbon and reserve for basting meat, cooking vegetables, or baking. Strain buttered bourbon through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any remaining droplets of butter.

  3. For the Cocktails: Dissolve turbinado sugar in 1/2 cup hot water (4 ounces; 120ml). Combine bourbon with sugar syrup and bitters. For each cocktail, serve the pre-batched Old Fashioned mixture on the rocks in a tumbler, or stirred with ice and then strained into a cocktail glass.

Special equipment

Fine-mesh strainer, whisk

This Recipe Appears In

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
23Calories
0gFat
5gCarbs
0gProtein
×
Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12
Amount per serving
Calories23
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g0%
Saturated Fat 0g0%
Cholesterol 0mg0%
Sodium 0mg0%
Total Carbohydrate 5g2%
Dietary Fiber 0g0%
Total Sugars 5g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 0mg0%
Calcium 1mg0%
Iron 0mg0%
Potassium 1mg0%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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