The Whisky Sour

The Whisky Sour is a cocktail composed of whisky (usually, but not always, American bourbon or rye), lemon juice, and sugar (some recipes also call for egg white). Although it first appears in print as early as 1826, in a list of ways that whisky could be drunk, it does not appear again until 1862, at which point it is immediately inducted into the canon of American drinks. Along with the related drinks made with brandy and gin, the Whisky Sour marked a particularly attractive hybrid of the large-format punch and the single-serving cocktail. Its particular genius, however, lay in the way the lemon juice softened the sharp, woody tang of the American whisky without masking it, turning what some people found objectionable into something compelling.

From the 1860s until the 1960s, the Whisky Sour was one of the more popular drinks in the canon, until its place was essentially usurped by the Margarita. See Margarita. As the Atlanta Daily Constitution put it in 1879, “When American meets American then comes the Whisky Sour.” The drink’s properties did shift slightly over time. Early recipes (such as in Haney’s Steward and Barkeeper’s Manual from 1869) suggest making the sour with an ample measure of water and a light hand with the lemon, resulting in a sweeter, longer punch-style drink, whereas later recipes eliminate the water and nudge forward the lemon, producing a shorter, sharper drink. Flourishes also followed: a dash of curaçao made its way into the mix in the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas’s bartender’s book; a float of red wine atop the sour earned many fans starting in the 1880s (as the Continental Sour, Southern Whisky Sour, Greenwich Sour, or, finally, New York Sour); and, beginning in the 1920s, a touch of egg white to add foam and body, a European addition that by the 1940s had become more or less de rigueur in America, too and is still considered essential in some circles. See New York Sour and sour mix. The plain Whisky Sour has not been at the forefront of the twenty-first-century cocktail revival, but its variations and derivatives are ubiquitous.

Recipe: Stir 7 ml sugar in 15 ml lemon juice; add 60 ml bourbon or straight rye whisky (or indeed any other whisky) and (optionally) 15 ml egg white; shake, strain into large cocktail glass and garnish with cherry and orange slice.

Embury, David. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. New York: Doubleday, 1948.

Steward and Barkeeper’s Manual. New York: Haney & Co, 1869.

“When American Meets American.” Atlanta Daily Constitution, February 20, 1879, 2.

Wondrich, David. Imbibe!, 2nd ed. New York: Perigee, 2015.

By: Paul Clarke