I spent this Christmas with 12 people in Connecticut. Charged with predinner mixed drinks, I offered two options: 1. a (cup of) lillet on the rocks topped with champagne and an orange twist (served in a flute), and 2. an old-fashioned. Personally, I’d rather have a lillet on the rocks with a twist OR a glass of champagne, but I needed some sort of mixed drink to serve to the two or three guests who eschewed hard alcohol. The champagne drink was…meh. Okay. Not bad.

My conundrum with the old-fashioneds was that I am not some kind of super quick, Tom Cruise-in-Cocktail bartender. I knew this party, and I knew people would be hovering over me, making suggestions about how I could speed things up. I did a lot of research, and eventually circled back to Robert Hess’s old-fashioned approach. It’s simple because instead of muddling a sugar cube and bitters for each drink, you prepare a simple syrup and then just measure some out for each cocktail, then add the bitters to that.

I used Russell’s Reserve Six Year Rye from Kentucky—we already had a loaded bar of bourbons and scotches, so I figured I’d mix things up with a little rye.

My parents, the hosts, have the beautiful old-fashioned glasses from Waterford pictured here—the shape is just perfect, very festive.

Using good Florida oranges helped both drinks immensely.

All in all, I’d say the OFs were a resounding success. Later on Twitter, a mixologist gave me a virtual eye roll for using simple syrup, but I’ll let him take that one up with Mr. Hess. And I wasn’t serving cocktails to a bunch of bartenders, after all. I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. When it’s a bartender party, I always bring the cheese. (They love cheese.)

The Drinkboy Old-Fashioned recipe is here.