Jeremy Oertel has saved the Fancy Free in his again pocket for years. He first encountered the maraschino-laced Outdated-Customary when he was working at Brooklyn’s now-closed Dram, the place visitors typically requested for the bartender’s selection, again in 2010. “The Outdated-Customary was tremendous fashionable,” he says. “However they’d have an Outdated-Customary and say, What’s subsequent?”
Maraschino liqueur could be a very polarizing ingredient, however Oertel’s at all times been a fan and has thus at all times championed the classics that decision for it. The Fancy Free grew to become one in every of his go-tos for these requesting spirit-forward cocktails. At this time, he continues to be a crusader for the drink. In reality, in his capability as inventive beverage director for Methodology Co., he’s positioned the traditional—and variations of it—on three menus within the final 12 months. At Simmer Down in Wilmington, Delaware, it’s prominently featured on the bar’s classics menu, and it’s additionally on the Outdated-Customary menu on the non-public membership within the Forth Lodge in Atlanta. He’s even bought an Italianate model on the menu at Il Premio (additionally within the Forth Lodge), referred to as Fantasia Free of charge, which includes nocino and fig-infused bourbon.
The Fancy Free bought to Dram by way of a Milk & Honey spec sheet that Oertel dutifully copied into his pocket book, however its origins lie within the Nineteen Forties. Its first look in print was in Crosby Gaige’s Cocktail Information and Women’ Companion, which was printed in 1941. Within the e book, the recipe calls for 2 ounces of Nice Arts (a now-defunct whiskey model with a rye-heavy mash invoice) plus two dashes maraschino and a touch every of orange and Angostura bitters. The combination is to be shaken with ice and strained right into a cocktail glass with a sugar rim. To nobody’s shock, cocktail revivalists ditched the sugar rim with out fanfare and selected to stir the drink and garnish it with an orange twist.
Like most Twenty first-century variations of the Fancy Free, Oertel’s recipe requires bourbon, which, he says, “is somewhat mellower and performs somewhat nicer with the maraschino with out overpowering it.” Recently he’s been reaching for Elijah Craig Small Batch or Outdated Forester—whiskeys with traditional character, high quality and good worth—for this drink. For the maraschino, he likes the lesser-known model of the liqueur from Caffo, which he describes as somewhat brighter, fruitier and fewer aromatic than different merchandise available on the market. Lastly, Oertel sticks with the bitters as referred to as for within the authentic Crosby Gaige recipe: one sprint every of Angostura and orange. And like his cocktail renaissance brethren, he opts for an orange twist over a sugar rim.
Oertel describes the Fancy Free as an Outdated-Customary with “just a bit little bit of an angle to it,” making it an accessible and interesting drink for many who favor that traditional. And since it’s made solely of shelf-stable substances (other than the garnish), the Fancy Free doesn’t demand even a easy syrup of its compounders, making it very approachable for residence bartenders. It’s simply totally different sufficient, however nonetheless acquainted, he says. “It’s not your dad’s Outdated-Customary.”
