Wisconsin Brandy Old Fashioned
Skip the supper club and make this classic cocktail at home. This Wisconsin brandy old fashioned recipe can be made sweet or sour. Swap whiskey if you want, just don’t forget the cherries. Makes 1 cocktail.
We have a lot of unique food traditions here in Wisconsin. From these unconventional brandy old fashioned cocktails to chicken booyah and deep fried cheese curds (which I will attempt to recreate without cheese), there are so many awesome foods I want to teach your about. So I’ve decided to start The Supper Club Series to share classic Wisconsin recipes and recreate them without milk when needed.
The first in the series is Wisconsins’s most classic cocktail: the brandy old fashioned. A traditional old fashioned cocktail uses whiskey, but here, we make them with brandy.
The reasons aren’t really clear, since most of this sort of stuff gets lost to history. Popular theories are that brandy was more familiar to German immigrants and that brandy was more readily available during prohibition times, but I’ll leave the historical internet research to you. Just know that you can order your old fashioned with either brandy or whiskey and no one will think twice about it.
Another thing that makes a Wisconsin old fashioned different than its more widespread counterpart is the “wash”. A wash is basically when you add soda or seltzer to a cocktail after mixing it. I’ve described the different ways we use this wash below, and you can choose whichever option you like best.
Get ready to soak up the sun with some fresh new recipes that are perfect for summer!
More cocktails fun: ginger saketinis / jam cocktails / pamplemousse fizz
Here’s what you’ll need to make a brandy old fashioned:
- Old fashioned glasses
- Muddler
- Jigger
- Cocktail picks
How to make a Wisconsin brandy old fashioned
Muddle the flavors. In an old fashioned glass, muddle an orange slice, maraschino cherry with a little bit of grenadine from the jar, sugar cube and a few dashes of bitters. Traditionally, Angostura bitters are used, but you can use another flavor if you want.
Add brandy and ice. On top of your muddled ingredients, add in 1 jigger of brandy (or a little more if you want). Stir the liquor around, and fill your glass with ice.
Top it off and garnish. Read below to find out how we customize and garnish a brandy old fashioned in Wisconsin.
Sweet, sour or press: wash it your way
To make this a true Wisconsin style old fashioned, you have a two traditional choices once you muddle your drink, add your liquor and ice. Sweet or sour. If you want to make a brandy old fashioned sweet, you would top your drink with lemon-lime soda like Sprite or 7Up. For a brandy old fashioned sour, you would use grapefruit soda, like 50/50 or Squirt.
But, my favorite way to make this cocktail is a press. Instead of soda, I top my drink with half lemon-lime soda and half seltzer water (or club soda). I order mine like this to cut down on the amount of sugar, but I also think it lets the other flavors in the cocktail shine through.
Garnish your brandy old fashioned like a Wisconsinite
Regardless of how you like your old fashioned, there’s one thing you don’t want to skip, and that’s the garnish. If you order an old fashioned at a bar in Wisconsin, you’ll be asked what kind of garnish you want. Cherries are an obvious choice (and what I always go with), but lots of people choose olives or pickled mushrooms. Good bars will even stock pickled Brussels sprouts, so you could choose that as well.
If you’re making these drinks at home, cherries and olives are a great start. If you like and will use the pickled mushrooms, get those, too.
More Wisconsin inspired recipes:
Print Wisconsin Brandy Old Fashioned
Skip the supper club and make this classic cocktail at home. This Wisconsin brandy old fashioned recipe can be made sweet or sour. Swap whiskey if you want, just don’t forget the cherries.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 cocktail 1x
Ingredients
- 1 orange slice
- 1 maraschino cherry + 1 teaspoon cherry juice
- 1 sugar cube
- 4 – 6 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1 1/2 ounces brandy
- Ice
- Lemon-lime, grapefruit soda or seltzer water
Instructions
- In an old fashioned glass, muddle orange slice, cherry, cherry juice, sugar cube and bitters.
- Add brandy and fill glass with ice.
- Top with soda of choice.
- Category: Cocktail
Keywords: old fashioned, brandy, Wisconsin, cocktail
Last Updated on April 2, 2022 by Melissa Belanger
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Trevor loves old fashioneds so much!
Yes! That’s because they’re the best 🙂
Ninety-Eight percent of all brandy old fashioneds made at a bar, supper club or at home in Wisconsin are a brandy old fashioned sweet with 7 Up. Cherry and orange as a garnish are traditional. I like to muddle in the same way and use Bittercup Orange Bitters, a blood orange along with a cognac or a nice brandy. Currently I am using Torres 10 from Spain in my brandy old fashioneds. I am certainly okay with V.O., Christian Brothers, Korbel that you get at a bar or supper club yet I enjoy my twist to Wisconsin in a glass. I just love a good brandy old fashioned, especially in the company of friends and family.
I don’t know you but i like your style
May aunt born and raised in Oconto county made her brandy Old Fashioned with home made pickled green beans….the only way to fly!!
Oh pickled green beans sound great! What a good idea!
50/50 and squirt are just fine, but let’s not forget Jolly Good sour pow’r!
★★★★★
Just had a traditional Wisconsin Old Fashion at Ishnalla Supper Club this week. I think the Angostura bitters is what gives it the Wisconsin vibes
really great I loved trying the press version
★★★★★
I am from Wisconsin and my family has made brandy old fashioned for years. Never heard of concerning myself with “Dairy” free brandy – being from the Dairy State. The pickled garnish options are good. However please proofread your site: this site might be a good “place” to search though it’s definitely not a “please to search”. And I always drink mine in a glass unless I use a plastic cup out at the cabin – aka – a shack – as they call them in Cheesehead territory.
★★★★
Agreed. The author seems much more concerned with being “politically correct” than actually correct. Maybe that flies in Bayview and The People’s Republic of Madistan, but it REEEEEEALLY grates on the rest of us in the State. 👎🏻
I’m sorry, but “the author” is a person who was raised in Green Bay and still lives here. I think I am more than qualified to write about Wisconsin cocktails. There’s no need to be rude and mock the political correctness of my article. It’s intent was to teach people who don’t live in our state how to make this unique old fashioned cocktail. I’m sorry if it bothers you that we have a dairy allergy in our family, but you don’t have to be here.
You know what grates on the actual rest of the state? Idiots like you who are such a special snowflake that you get offended that someone has a dairy allergy.
Sorry, but I was actually raised in Green Bay and still live here. I’m not sure why it bothers you that I wrote this article for people who don’t live in Wisconsin, but I’m curious as to why you are looking up a recipe if you are such an expert.
As for the dairy free alcohol, this website is a dairy free site, and my husband is allergic to dairy so we have to go out of our way to find safe liquor since allergens aren’t required to be labeled in alcohol.
Either way, I hope you enjoy your old fashioned no matter how you make them, and please keep your rude comments to yourself.
I’m in Wisconsin. I make and drink old fashions for 60 years.
My mom makes them with apricot brandy and simple syrup (instead of the sugar cube). They are AMAZING!
That sounds fantastic!
I would love to hear your recipe too, Joan.
Thanks for the article, giving me different ideas for making my old fashioned, love the garnishes!
★★★★
I have a hard time finding bitters so I use ginger ale. Very good
To the pits of hell with the hater Karens. Great article and good recipe too! I recently moved back to Wisconsin and am happy to be where folks treasure the Old Fashion Drink from the north woods! Thanks for the recipe!
My best friend I’d from and lives in WI, and the first time I visited, we went out for fish fry Friday and my very first Brandy Old Fashioned sweet. And I’m hooked, that’s all I drank for a week, still drinking them. Mmmmm
★★★★★
No self respecting Wisconsinite would be caught serving a brandy old fashioned sweet with Aristocrat brandy. Real Wisconsinites use Korbel brandy. Just saying.
Love this recipe! It’s exactly what you’ll get in a traditional Wisconsin supper club. We visited Walworth County last summer to check out all the beautiful display gardens and after a day of hiking, a brandy fashioned and fish fry hit the spot!
★★★★★
I’m finding that brandy is very under-appreciated, especially with all the bourbon snobs out there. Brandy Old Fashioned is the only way to go unless you are a flatlander from Chicago where they only make them with bourbon.
Not sure why I’ve taken an interest in cocktails; I usually drink beer. But Wisconsin Old-Fashioneds somehow came on my radar screen. 🙂 Is Fresca okay for the top-up, or does it need to be Sprite, 7-Up, or Squirt? I made one the other night but all I had was Canada Dry diet ginger ale; it worked, but I think club soda would have been better. I also didn’t have the right glassware, but I’ve ordered some and it gets here tomorrow so I can try again. (I have E&J VS brandy, I didn’t see Korbel at the liquor store but I probably just missed it) Thanks.
You could use a Fresca, it would be a good replacement for Squirt, giving you an brandy old fashioned sour. The glassware is probably the least important factor, there are a lot of bars around here that will make you a double old fashioned in a pint glass. Feel free to use whatever brandy you have on hand, you could even substitute a whiskey for a whiskey old fashioned!
Thanks for all the amazing ways to make an old fashion. I live in Wisconsin and I would like to make old fashions for a party I’m having . This helps a lot since I’ve never made these before.