Benton's Old Fashioned

The Benton's Old Fashioned is a fat-washed bourbon Old Fashioned. Don Lee created it at PDT (Please Don't Tell) in New York's East Village around 2007, using Four Roses bourbon washed with bacon fat from Allan Benton's Tennessee smokehouse, and pure Grade B maple syrup in place of plain sugar. The drink is one of a small number of modern cocktails that introduced a new technique to the bar canon at the same time it introduced a new drink.

Fat-Washing as a Working Technique

Fat-washing — infusing a spirit with a fat, then freezing the fat out — was popularized in modern American bartending by Eben Freeman at Tailor in 2005. Lee applied the technique to a familiar form: the bourbon Old Fashioned. PDT, which opened in 2007 behind a phone booth in Crif Dogs, used Benton's bacon — Allan Benton's salt-cured Tennessee smokehouse product — to wash the Four Roses bourbon, then served the resulting spirit with maple syrup and Angostura over a large cube. The technique is now standard; the drink that introduced it is still the canonical reference.

Lee published the recipe with attribution to himself and PDT in the PDT Cocktail Book (2011), co-written with bar founder Jim Meehan. The recipe is reproducible at home — make a batch of bacon-washed bourbon, hold it in the fridge, and pour from it like any other bottle.

The Spec

Two ounces of bacon-fat-washed bourbon, a quarter ounce of pure Grade B (now Grade A Dark) maple syrup, two dashes of Angostura. Stirred over ice, strained over a large cube in a rocks glass, expressed and dropped orange peel. Garnish with a strip of crisp bacon if you're feeling theatrical; PDT did not.

Making the Bacon Bourbon

Cook half a pound of good bacon (Benton's if you can get it, any quality smokehouse bacon otherwise). Strain off about an ounce and a half of the rendered fat per 750 ml bottle of bourbon. Pour the warm fat into the bottle, shake to combine, let stand at room temperature for four hours. Freeze overnight — the fat solidifies. Strain through cheesecloth; the bourbon now carries the bacon's smoky-salty soul without any greasy texture. Keep it refrigerated and use it within a couple of months — the residual fat, not the alcohol, is what sets the limit. Full method and ratios on the bacon fat-washed bourbon page.

Why Maple, Not Simple Syrup

Maple syrup adds caramelization and a faint earthiness that plain sugar can't. Lee specified Grade B (a stronger, more flavorful grade — now called Grade A Dark Robust after a USDA grading reclassification in 2015). A Grade A Amber works in a pinch but reads as thinner.

Bourbon Choice

Four Roses (yellow label) is what PDT used — a balanced, slightly fruity Kentucky bourbon at 80 proof. Buffalo Trace, Old Forester 86, or Wild Turkey 81 all work. Avoid anything heavily charred or extra-aged; the bacon wash is the headline, not the bourbon's barrel character.

Bottom Line

Benton's Old Fashioned is one of the few modern cocktails where the technique is more important than the recipe. Once you've made the bacon bourbon, the cocktail itself is barely a recipe — bourbon, maple, bitters, stir. The first sip is the surprise: smoke and bacon read through the spirit cleanly, without any of the gimmick associated with savory cocktails. Make a batch of the bourbon for a weekend; the drink essentially makes itself for the next month.

The Old Fashioned Family