Tommy's Old Fashioned

Recently, I bought myself a nice-looking decanter set, so of course I had to come up with a pre-mixed cocktail to fill it. Such concoctions, much like my now-standard mix-it-yourself party punch trick, are great for gatherings (or laziness) because they can be self-served, freeing up yourself as the host to mingle and partake yourself. This sort of thing is arguably even better because it can sit on the bar indefinitely and be simply poured to serve.

This one is named after my newborn son, because it's based on the three-part blend of spirits that I packed away in a flask for our stay in the hospital (because fold-out couches are horrifically uncomfortable and I needed some help getting to sleep after the first night). The liqueurs and bitters are bolt-on additions, but solid ones that I stand by.

The following will just about fill up a clean 750 mL bottle of your choice, because I'm assuming that you have such a bottle available. Dig an empty wine bottle out of the recycling and rinse it out if you don't. That will make for somewhere between 10 and 16 drinks depending on how liberally you pour them.

8 oz Cabin Still bourbon (another basic bourbon of your choice would be acceptable)

8 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (no substitutions)

8 oz Mellow Corn (ditto)

1/2 oz maraschino (Luxardo, naturally)

1/2 oz Casoni 1814

1/2 oz cinnamon syrup

12 dashes Regan's No. 6 Orange bitters

12 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine in a decanter or empty bottle of your choice, stopper, and store on your bar indefinitely. To serve, pour over a large ice cube and stir to your desired dilution and temperature.

And yes: twenty-one years from now, I'll gladly serve him one of these, assuming that both I and the recipe survive to that day. At this point, that seems quite a long way off.