In Search of the Ultimate Whiskey Sour

There’s a restaurant in New York’s East Village whose cocktail menu assigns each drink to an illustrated wooden chair. The Manhattan is a severe, rigid, slat-back chair; the Aperol Spritz, a far more inviting rounded rendition. The Whiskey Sour, meanwhile, is paired with a classic spindle back dining chair, the sort that completes the dining sets in countless American homes—practical, timeless, reliable. It’s an apt match for a drink that is, by some accounts, the most unwavering sour in the canon.

“It’s one of the safer sours you can order,” said Punch editor-in-chief Talia Baiocchi at a recent blind tasting of Whiskey Sours, noting that unlike a Daiquiri, the drink’s base spirit spans a relatively narrow flavor spectrum. Any variation largely comes down to the proof of the whiskey, and whether the whiskey in question is bourbon or rye. In fact, in the seven years since we last blind-tasted Whiskey Sours, it appears that the drink has become even more predictable. Whereas, in 2017, almost half of the submitted recipes called on rye as the base, and about the same proportion were served on the rocks and without egg white, this time only two of nine recipes featured rye (one in a split base with bourbon), and all but one were served up and with egg white (the odd one out used aquafaba). On the whole, this aligned with what the judges were looking for—a frothy drink, served up, with a balance between sweet and sour, and a whiskey that could punch through.

Adding to the drink’s newfound homogeneity was the near-universal garnish choice: a decorative dash of Angostura (or, in one case, Peychaud’s) bitters atop the frothy head. None of the assembled judges—bartenders Patty Dennison and Paige Walwyn and Punch’s own Baiocchi, Mary Anne Porto and myself—could pinpoint when that development took hold. However, none had any qualms with the decision, noting that it was a logical choice to mitigate any potentially off-putting aromas from the egg white or aquafaba.

Against the odds, the two favorite recipes—each equally favored by the judges—were the only ones that featured rye. One was the Whiskey Sour from Dan Sabo, whose recipe also took top honors at our 2017 tasting. His spec consists of two ounces of Rittenhouse rye, an ounce of lemon juice, half an ounce each of orange juice and rich simple syrup, and an egg white, served on the rocks with an orange half wheel and a brandied cherry as garnish. Though the judges did not find the presentation archetypal, nobody was mad at the drink arriving on ice. Perhaps because of the unorthodox addition of OJ, one taster described this example as “very fresh” and another as particularly “juicy.” 

The other favorite was Alicia Perry’s Whiskey Sour. Perry’s recipe splits the base between an ounce of Elijah Craig Small Batch bourbon and an ounce of Rittenhouse rye, combined with three-quarters of an ounce each of lemon juice and cane sugar simple syrup, plus an egg white, served up in a coupe with Angostura bitters dashed atop the froth. Visually, it aligned with the majority of the drinks we tasted, but it stood out as the most aromatically compelling; Perry calls for a lemon twist to be expressed over the surface of the drink in addition to the bitters. Described as both “classy” and “thoughtful” by the judges, Perry’s highly considered spec led one taster to declare: “I want two of those.”