How to Make a Whiskey Sour

How to Make a Whiskey Sour

By David Wondrich 

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. whiskey—bourbon
  • 2/3 oz. lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon superfine sugar
  • cocktail glass

Directions

  1. Shake the bourbon,* juice,** and sugar well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass (unless you happen to have a Sour glass).
  2. Resist, if you can, the impulse to decorate lavishly with fruit, although a maraschino cherry will raise no eyebrows.

For a change, try a Dizzy Sour (nothing to do with the trumpet-wrangler; the recipe's far more ancient than that): Dock the whiskey 1/2 ounce, add 3 dashes of Bénédictine, and float 1/2 ounce dark Jamaican rum on top; garnish with a stick of pineapple, or not.

You can also commit Hari Kari, our pre-Prohibition Wehman Bros. Bartenders Guide informs us, by building the standard recipe in a tall glass, topping it off with fizz water, and bunging in whatever fruits you have in your garnish tray.

* Or rye whiskey, or Canadian whiskey, or Irish whiskey or...

** The juice, more or less, of half a decent-sized lemon


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