#Bug juice drink recall how to#

So put yourself in their shoes: one of the real challenges of Prohibition-era drinking was getting your hands on any alcohol worth drinking.

The verve with which the Dry Movement was embraced naturally varied from town to town and state to state it did not fare well in Wisconsin, which had been settled almost exclusively by Western Europeans for whom beverage alcohol was a cultural birthright. It’s easy for most adults to understand why this new law might have suffered a deficit of popularity. Prohibition made it illegal to produce, transport, import, and sell beverage alcohol. The next piece of the puzzle was likely just around the corner: Prohibition.

#Bug juice drink recall how to#

The Whiskey Cocktail became the Old- Fashioned, and Wisconsin now had its Brandy Old-Fashioned.īut how to explain all that fruit? You recall that the original formulation called only for a lemon twist, and even that was optional. You will recall that many different spirits were “plugged into” the original cocktail’s formula, so switching out the whiskey for brandy was a natural branching of the drink’s evolution. Given the German cultural preference for brandy over whiskey, it seems a more plausible solution to the riddle than any other. Fully one-quarter of America’s population attended the fair, including many from Wisconsin. Josef, Antone and Francis Korbel’s brandy was showcased at Chicago’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893. Writing for Madison’s Isthmus weekly, Minnich had a revelation when he realized that at the very moment in history that the Old Fashioned was enjoying its renaissance, three California lumbermen launched their brandy distillation business. Just how did Wisconsin’s peculiar recipe come to prevail? I am not the first to wonder, and Robert O. It’s a clear example of cultural divergence, in which one area develops its own way of responding to a more widespread change or challenge. One smallish pocket of the United States branched off with its own formulation.

The unimproved Whiskey Cocktail came to be known as the Old Fashioned, and it was popular among 19th century purists. Before long, every corner bar had its own featured variation of the Whiskey Cocktail, leading some drinkers to wax nostalgic for.

Orange curacao, maraschino liqueur and absinthe all made an appearance in these “fancy” or “improved” cocktails. Over time, bartenders played around with this formula and started adding to it. The original formulation of this drink is elegant in its simplicity, stripped-down but powerful. There were variations featuring gin and rum, but mostly it was prepared with bourbon or rye. The spirit provided the hair of the dog, and the bitters settled the stomach. These mostly young men were racing and hunting enthusiasts who liked to drink a Whiskey Cocktail in the morning. It was the drink of choice for the sporting set. Spirit and bitters, sugar and water: in the 1800’s this simple formula produced a drink called the Whiskey Cocktail. It’s a fine distinction, to be sure, but in the interest of accuracy, if you really want to get down to the roots of this historical beverage, consider a time before the Old Fashioned. That’s what an Old Fashioned has become, in Wisconsin. However, there are other options, and so they unfold: sour, water or seltzer? Olives or fruit? Mushrooms? Twist? Brussels sprouts? The default setting of this drink seems to be “sweet,” so your bartender will gun a splash of Sprite or 7-up into the glass before perching an orange-and-cherry flag on the rim. The brandy and burgundy-colored slurry are combined in their eponymous glass. The premixed ingredients save the steps of combining and muddling, while silently testifying to the popularity of the drink. In our state, if one orders an Old Fashioned, likely the bartender will serve 2 ounces of Korbel brandy and an ounce of premixed “bug juice”: sugar, water and Angostura bitters. Over the years, I’ve heard many of my guests complain that their out-of-state bartenders “don’t even know how to make it.” The classical formula is as nearly perfect as a drink can be, but Wisconsin iconoclasts have de- and re-constructed this drink to suit nearly any palate. We have made it our own so thoroughly that when we are presented with an actual Old Fashioned, we sometimes refuse to believe our taste buds. In the Holy Trinity of old-school cocktails – the Martini, the Manhattan, and the Old Fashioned – the one most intimately associated with the great State of Wisconsin is certainly the latter. How nostalgia gave birth to the Old Fashioned