Jack Dunn, bartender at Great Jones Distilling Co. in Manhattan, spoke with Cheddar News about the history of the whiskey sour and the process involved in making it.

<div class="block">Jack Dunn, bartender at Great Jones Distilling Co. in Manhattan, spoke with Cheddar News about the history of the whiskey sour and the process involved in making it.</div>

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On The Scene: Making Drinks on National Whiskey Sour Day

Whiskey sour today, Michelle Castillo is on the scene at Great Jones Distillery to give you the crash course on making your own version of the classic drink. That's right, Kristen, I'm here with Jack Dunn. He's a bartender here at Great Jones Distillery. He's gonna show us how to make a perfect whiskey sour. So tell me more about the history of this drink and what goes in it. Yeah. So um this drink was kind of built out of necessity in a strange way. Um The British Navy were on long voyages and water wasn't really safe to drink on these long voyages. So they would bring spirits along and that's how they get their water. Um But also to prevent scurvy, they started combining citrus with this uh spirit and thus the sour was sort of born. So it created a lot of cocktails, the daiquiri, the sour, a lot of different things. All right. So it goes in it. So for this, we like to start with egg white. Um And the reason you start with the egg white is if you mess up the egg white part, then you kinda have to toss out the whole drink. So we've got our egg white in there now and I'm gonna move on to some simple syrup. OK? Which is just a 50% sugar, 50% water. OK? And so that gives it a little bit of sweetness that you taste. Correct. Yeah. So part of the reason why we have the egg white in there is to balance out the sour element and it kind of makes it more palatable. So I'm gonna add that sour element now. So we have the egg white and our sweetness in there. And now I'm gonna add some lemon juice and of course, you want to use fresh ingredients. So these are all fresh food today. Once I've got all this in here, then I add my favorite part, which is our straight bourbon. Now, does it matter what you put inside? Like does it taste different if you use whiskey or if you use bourbon? Yeah. So I find that um with a whiskey sour, it's great to have something that it's got a little bit of sweetness and kind of pushes through in the cocktail and our bourbon has that sort of peppery sweetness that really works out well. But you can use our four grain bourbon or rye whiskey as well. Still gonna taste great. Cool. So now I'm gonna do what's called a dry shake and this incorporates all the ingredients and emulsifies the egg with the rest of this here. So, so no ice. No ice for this one. We shake this one twice and you know that it's almost done when you start to get a little bit of egg exploding out of here. You just gotta make sure not to get it on your, your guests or the camera or the camera. So when is the best time to enjoy a whiskey sour? Um Honestly, I find it to be a great uh all year drink. It's great in the summer. It's great in the fall. Um But for me, I think personally, I like it out by the pool in the summer sometimes at a wedding. It can be great. So now that I've got the dry shake finished, I'm gonna move on to our standard shake of ice. Add some ice here to my tin second shake and this is our second shake now. And now how do you know when it's done? Is it the sound of the crushed ice? Yeah. So you start to hear the, the pitch and the ice change. Um And you start to feel how everything is completely frosted. That's usually a good sign that my cocktail is finished here. So let's give this a taste. Now, I'm gonna give it a double strain out into this beautiful coop glass here. And I'd like to add one last finishing touch on this which is a little bit of aromatic bitters. Sounds good. And there's this thing about humans. We've been superstitious as long as we've been alive and it's the same for bartending five drops. You always wanna have an odd number with your garage. Well, I have one earlier from when he finished it. So I'm gonna try and give it a little taste and it is the perfect summer drink. So, enjoy your whiskey sour here on National Whiskey Sour Day. Back to you guys in the studio. Uh Michelle. Great as always. Cheers. Thank you.