My husband works second shift and usually gets home between eleven and midnight. We always had enjoyed going out for a fish fry and a few Old Fashioneds on Friday nights, but with this new schedule we hadn’t been able to. So even though I normally go to bed earlier, one week I decided to stay up, and we headed out to find a bar that was still open at that time of day. Now, a bar open at midnight may not seem unusual wherever you are, but for a small town in the Northwoods, during off season – they tend to close earlier than that.

We were successful though; Jake’s did not let us down. We each had a few amazing drinks that night. I declared it the “best Old Fashioned in the Northwoods”. In all honesty though, I hadn’t had many at that point. I was really into ordering a “tall” then. My understanding of a tall is a larger glass, twice as much soda (we’re in Wisconsin so adding soda is totally okay) but the same amount of spirit. I’m pretty sure this bartender was making us doubles, so we felt them pretty quickly. We asked if we could order food, and understandably, the kitchen was closed. Or course it was, we should have known better. Chips or peanuts or bar pretzels was the best they could do.

That was such a fun date night, the next week we decided to try again. This time we went to a little place right around the corner from home that happened to still be open. No one else was there except us and the bartender, maybe the owner as well - warming a barstool in the corner. We sat at the end of the bar and ordered two talls, SoCo Old Fashioned Sweet, our drink of choice at the time. Well, she was not happy to see us. I’m sure she was about ready to close up for the night when we came in. We were greeted with huffs, eye rolls, and glasses slammed on the counter. She hardly put any ice in the glass, the soda was flat, and she didn’t add any garnish at all. Choking down that warm drink among unpleasant company was not the best way to spend a Friday night.

Lesson learned. The bartender makes the drink, but the bartending MAKES the drink. In other words, there IS such a thing as a bad Old Fashioned, it’s one made by an unhappy bartender. Or one made with rail whiskey.

We decided after that to take this show back home, it was time for me to learn how to make a proper Old Fashioned. So in this house – Old Fashioned Fridays are absolutely a thing now. What I’ve learned since then is that what makes an Old Fashioned a truly enjoyable one - besides a quality bourbon – is the company you share it with.