Forget The Old Fashioned: Try This Vintage Bourbon Cocktail Instead

The old fashioned has come to all but define the bourbon cocktail genre and it harkens back to around 1800. But, beyond this icon of the cocktail pantheon, the world of bourbon cocktails continued to flourish. Next time you are considering one, why not opt for a Brown Derby. This cocktail arrived on the scene during the Jazz Age in the 1930s and smoothes out the bourbon component with tart grapefruit juice and honey. 

You can think of a Brown Derby almost like an old fashioned that went to Florida for a winter vacation. It still has the warm and deep notes that bourbon brings to the party, but adds the zing of freshly squeezed citrus supported by the creamy vanilla sweetness of honey, rather than straight sugar and bitters. It all comes together in a drink that feels slightly softer and eminently sippable.

In true Jazz Age larger-than-life style, the Brown Derby libation has a somewhat fuzzy backstory. Brown Derby was the name of an iconic restaurant in Los Angeles, and one theory is that this drink was the spot's signature tipple. The other story goes that a bartender at the Vendôme Club located nearby created the drink as a nod to the diner. The rub is that a similar drink recipe was published around the same time in London with the name De Rigeur. Regardless of the true origin, Brown Derby is the name that stuck. 

To make a quintessential Brown Derby, you simply need to combine one part honey syrup, two parts fresh grapefruit juice, and three parts bourbon in a cocktail shaker. This easy-to-make icy-cold tipple readily strains into your cocktail glass and is finished with a grapefruit twist. The only pitfall to avoid is to make sure to use honey syrup (and not straight honey) so that you don't end up with a gloopy, unpourable mess clinging to the sides of your shaker. Making honey syrup just calls for combining equal parts honey and warm water to create a smooth, readily mixable liquid.

To further play off the Brown Derby bourbon cocktail riff, you could also try the three-ingredient bourbon cocktail called gold rush which swaps out the grapefruit juice element for lemon juice and still rounds out the equation with honey. Or, if the grapefruit and honey angle is what appeals most, you might enjoy the two ingredients in a cowgirl paloma, a classic grapefruit-forward tequila cocktail made extra sassy with the addition of hot honey. Regardless, you can raise a toast to inviting winter citrus with a drink that likely inspired them all and kept the post-Prohibition parties swinging.