The Widow Old-Fashioned — Photo courtesy of Samuel Berman
To most of the cocktail-drinking universe, the recipe for an Old-Fashioned is the distillation of simplicity: bourbon or rye, sugar syrup, a dash of bitters and an orange peel for a garnish. It’s a drink formula that has held up for more than 200 years – except in Wisconsin.
At some point around the turn of the last century, the local Sconnies decided to blend up a unique take on the Old-Fashioned, substituting brandy for bourbon and adding carbonated soda and a fruit mash to create a sweeter drink to appeal to immigrants from brandy- and schnapps-loving countries like Germany and Poland.
Order an Old-Fashioned at The Tin Widow, arguably Milwaukee’s finest cocktail bar, and you’re likely to get a blank stare from the bartender: she’s not being rude, just waiting for further instructions. Because not only is the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned unusual, it’s also unusually particular.
Wisconsin Old-Fashioned, brat and pretzels — Photo courtesy of Robert Curley
“You have to indicate the preparation you want,” says Sam Berman, Tin Widow’s co-owner; “sweet” (mixed with lemon-lime soda like Sprite or 7-Up), “sour” (mixed with grapefruit soda, traditionally Squirt), “press” (half lemon-lime soda, half soda water), or “soda” (soda water).
In other words, if you want your Wisconsin Old-Fashioned on the sweet side, ask for a “brandy Old-Fashioned sweet.” Or a “brandy Old-Fashioned sour” if you’d like it sour. Or so on.
Overly complicated? Perhaps, but there’s history behind this most Wisconsin of cocktails – although not everyone agrees on the origin story.
The most popular version holds that the drink grew out of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where the Korbel brothers from California showcased their namesake brandy, which quickly became a hit with residents of nearby Wisconsin. Sipping brandy straight up was fine until Prohibition, when domestic alcohol production was outlawed, and drinkers turned to illegal substitutes that required a lot of mixers to cover their cheap taste. In the case of the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned, that meant adding carbonated beverages and orange and cherries muddled with the bitters.
Prohibition ended nearly 90 years ago, but the drink recipe stuck. Wisconsinites still consume half of the brandy produced by Korbel each year, most of it in Old-Fashioneds. And while the dairy industry may have gotten milk declared the state drink back in the ‘80s, Wisconsin has the nation’s third highest number of bars per capita in the country, and you betcha nobody is ordering a glass of low-fat in any of those places.
“There are two things every bar in Wisconsin has to have: Miller beer and Korbel brandy,” says Berman. “Your run-of-the-mill bar might not even know how to make what people from elsewhere think of as an Old-Fashioned.”
The Tin Widow doesn’t list a Wisconsin Old-Fashioned on its drink menu; the bar’s version of the classic cocktail is a hybrid of both the local and “normal” styles – a bourbon Old-Fashioned stirred with housemade sour mix. It’s the bar’s most popular drink, but Berman knows better than to deny customers the opportunity to order the cocktail that, to Wisconsin residents, “feels like home.”
“We stock 250 whiskeys, more than 200 gins and one brandy – Korbel,” he says.
Wisconsin Old-Fashioned made with Central Standard brandy — Photo courtesy of Jon Wolf – The Rally Co.
Outside of the Badger State, mixologists may anguish over which bourbon makes the best Old-Fashioned and whether authenticity even allows for an orange peel in the glass. But the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned is endlessly adaptable. Evan Hughes, CEO and co-founder of Wisconsin’s Central Standard Craft Distillery, likes to order his sweet with an olive garnish; at the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, Old-Fashioneds are mixed with the brewery’s own maple root beer.
In a minor act of heresy, Central Standard has made a bid to find a home in local liquor cabinets for its own North Wisconsin brandy as the base liquor for making a Wisconsin Old-Fashioned.
“People want to support local products,” Hughes says, describing the North Wisconsin distilled wine spirit as a “traditional Wisconsin brandy with a little extra flavor profile,” thanks to aging in bourbon barrels.
Replacing Korbel in the hearts and glasses of Wisconsinites might be a tall order, but Hughes says some of his neighbors are willing to pay a small premium to “experience something a bit elevated” in their Old-Fashioned.
Whether blended with a newfangled brandy or not, the Old-Fashioned is “a drink that brings people together in Wisconsin,” says Hughes.
“It’s what my dad ordered when we went to a supper club,” he says. “It’s so ingrained in our culture that it doesn’t seem bizarre at all.”