Wisconsin Old Fashioned

The Wisconsin Old Fashioned is what happens when an entire state decides the classic needs more fruit, more length, and brandy where the rest of the country reaches for whiskey. A sugar cube is muddled with bitters, an orange slice, and a cherry; brandy goes over ice; and the whole thing is topped with soda and ordered by style — sweet, sour, or press. It is the near-universal first drink at a Wisconsin supper club, poured before the relish tray arrives. Purists of the spirit-forward classic tend to wince. Wisconsin does not care.

History

There is no single inventor and no clean origin date for the Wisconsin Old Fashioned — it is a regional drift of a 19th-century classic, not a one-night invention. The charming story, that German-Wisconsinite visitors tasted Korbel brandy at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and carried the habit home, is folklore: Korbel itself can't confirm it, and the company stopped making brandy through Prohibition and didn't resume until the 1960s, which makes a continuous "since 1893" tradition hard to square.

The better-documented story, traced by cocktail researcher Jeanette Hurt through mid-century Milwaukee newspaper archives, is duller and more convincing: during and after World War II, with good whiskey scarce, Wisconsin distributors landed a large stock of aged brandy, drinkers found it preferable to the available whiskey, and aggressive value marketing cemented the loyalty. By Korbel's own figures, roughly half its brandy is sold in Wisconsin, and the state's drinkers are widely cited as the country's top brandy consumers. What's beyond dispute is the cultural home: the supper club, where the brandy Old Fashioned is the standard opener.

The Spec

Built and muddled directly in the glass, then lengthened with soda — which is the structural break from a classic Old Fashioned, and the reason this drinks long and sessionable rather than short and spirituous. Muddle the sugar, bitters, and fruit; add brandy and ice; top with the soda for your chosen style. The ratio below is a representative sweet build; adjust the soda to taste.

Brandy, and Korbel Specifically

The brandy is the whole point — swap in whiskey and you've left Wisconsin. Korbel is the de facto house pour statewide, but any soft, fruit-forward California brandy does the job; this is not the place for a flinty aged Cognac. The character you want is round and a little sweet, because the muddled fruit and soda are leaning that way too.

Sweet, Sour, or Press

The order is finished by its topper. Sweet takes lemon-lime soda (Sprite or 7UP). Sour takes a tart citrus soda — classically Squirt — for a drier, more puckering glass. Press splits the difference with half lemon-lime and half soda water, the least sweet of the three. No version is the single "correct" one; sweet and sour are the two you'll hear most. And don't be surprised by the garnish: many supper clubs offer a green olive, especially on a sour — a genuine regional quirk, not a mistake.

The Bourbon Question

You'll see this built on bourbon — a muddled, soda-topped Old Fashioned with a Midwestern accent, and a perfectly good drink. It just isn't the Wisconsin one. Treat the 2 oz bourbon, 4 dashes bitters, 3 oz lemon-lime soda version as a legitimate alternate; the brandy is what makes the name mean something.

Bottom Line

A longer, fruitier, more forgiving Old Fashioned that rewards a soft brandy and a fast bar order. Make it sweet the first time, try it sour the second, and decide for yourself whether the olive belongs. It also lives in the Old Fashioned family.

The Old Fashioned Family

The Wisconsin Old Fashioned is the state's brandy riff on a 19th-century classic. Its closest relatives are the other members of the Old Fashioned family — each swaps the base spirit and sweetener while keeping the sugar-bitters-citrus backbone.