I must carp: in today’s Los Angeles Times crossword, the answer for 13-A, four letters, “Old-Fashioned option” is NEAT.
Now — once upon a time, the Old-Fashioned was made without ice. And there might somewhere be a modern recipe for an Old-Fashioned made without ice. But an Old-Fashioned is made with ice. Look at a few recipes. It’s a cocktail made with ice.
But even if no-ice is an option, an Old-Fashioned is never NEAT. The Oxford English Dictionary:
Of alcoholic liquors: pure; unadulterated; spec. not mixed with water (or, in later use: soft drink, etc.); undiluted.An Old-Fashioned is made with whiskey, bitters, sugar, and water (and, if you must, a garnish). It is not NEAT.
You may remember this moment of Internets hilarity: How to make an Old-Fashioned. “Everything good and mashed.” Not neat at all!
[I like this odd phrasing: “ice became normalized in the 1860s.”]
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Reminds me of William Faulkner's short story "An Error in Chemistry", in Knight’s Gambit . Always dissolve sugar first, and pour whiskey last, otherwise you're in trouble!
Indeed. I’ll have to find it in the library — Knight’s Gambit is one of few Faulkner works I don’t have on the shelf. There’s a 1954 TV adaptation at archive.org.
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