Brandon's old fashioned.

Something I really enjoy is taking some well known thing and making it my own. I tend to think I'm not as creative as I wish I was. Usually, anything I come up with is just a bastard child of seven other ideas. 

With that said, I present to you, my bastard child old fashioned.

Pretty, isn't it? Here's what you'll need.

Ingredients: 

1 oz whiskey. In this one I used Forty Creek. 

1 oz brown sugar simple syrup. 

2 dashes Aromatic bitters.

2 dashes Orange bitters.

1 drop saline.

Splash of club soda.

1/4 an orange. Here I used Navel, but Blood is also good.

1 maraschino cherry. 

Ice. Big chunky ice cubes.

Tools: 

Shaker.

Muddler.

Knife.

Lighter.

Start by cutting the eating bit out of the orange. Feel free to be quick, this isn't meant to look pretty. Set the rind aside, we'll be using that later. Drop that orange into your shaker and smash the pulp out of it. You want this to be chunky.

Next take that rind and burn it using your lighter. You want a good burn on the orange. That is going to open the scent of that orange oil, and make it easy to spread. And you're going to spread that on the inside rim of the glass. Once that glass is as greasy as... a greasy thing, set the rind aside.

Drop a load of ice into the tin on top of that orange massacre. Now pour the whiskey, simple syrup, bitters, and saline into the tin. 

Normally, an old fashioned is just built in a glass, but because of the thickness of the simple syrup (brown sugar is much thicker than granulated sugar) it just sinks to the bottom, and you want this to look pretty, and not taste like whiskey then diabetes, right?

Cap that shaker, and treat it like a newborn child. No more child support for you! 

[please direct all hate to the comment section.]

Here is where it can get tricky. You want a real chunky flow out of that shaker. Depending on how you pour, you may need to get your dirty fingers into that tin and take out the cubes. I find a split tin pour works best, but that can be a bit on the advanced side of pouring. 

If you get it right, you'll have bits of your orange mixed in with your drink. If not, who cares? it is still delicious, and you won't have to chew. Now take that orange rind and that cherry. Stab them through the heart with a spear, and spread their corpse across the top of that drink.

Most people would think they're done. NOPE. I want you... To pour that splash of club soda over the garnish and THAT is how you finish that drink. 

I realize that about 35% of that is show, but what a show. If you saw your bartender do even half that stuff, you'd be handing an extra $5 for that drink. Which he would appreciate, as therapy is expensive, and someone needs to figure out why he thought "cap that shaker, and treat it like a newborn child" was funny.