National Whiskey Sour Day: Seven Riffs on the Classic and Six Sours Beyond Whiskey (Bite-Sized)

Bite-Sized

Part 1: Eight Whiskey Sours, One Scent, Four Exceptions → Comic-style illustration of a bartender mid-shake, with a row of finished sours running off both edges of the frame on a dark wood bar

Comic-style illustration of a bartender mid-shake, with a row of finished sours running off both edges of the frame on a dark wood bar

Jerry Thomas's 1862 guide laid out the sour format in four numbered recipes, brandy and gin, none of them whiskey and none using egg. The whiskey sour doesn't reach print until 1869. Eight builds here, one fragrance anchoring four of them. Two to start with, the one everything else on the list argues with, and the one that adds the egg.

1. Classic Whiskey Sour

The bar-default version. No egg, straight over ice. Every other drink in the series is arguing with it.

2 oz (60 ml) Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond, or bourbon
¾ oz (22.5 ml) fresh lemon juice
¾ oz (22.5 ml) simple syrup (1:1)
2 dashes Angostura bitters, optional, my preference not the canon
Glass: Rocks, over ice

Shake hard with ice. Strain over fresh ice. Garnish with an orange half-wheel and a cherry.

2. Boston Sour

Same build, egg white required. The name has no documented origin, no inventor, no founding bar. The drink underneath it is well documented; the label isn't.

2 oz (60 ml) Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond, or bourbon
¾ oz (22.5 ml) fresh lemon juice
¾ oz (22.5 ml) simple syrup (1:1)
1 egg white, or 1 oz (30 ml) aquafaba
Glass: Rocks or coupe

Dry shake without ice for 15 seconds to build the foam. Add ice, shake again until cold. Strain over fresh ice or up. Garnish with an orange half-wheel and a cherry.

Part 2: Six Sours Beyond Whiskey → Comic-style illustration of six cocktails lined up on a dark bar: a gin sour, a vodka sour, a tequila sour, a smoking mezcal sour, a foam-capped amaretto sour, and a dark amaro sour, six unlabeled bottles behind them lit by a wall sconce

Comic-style illustration of six cocktails lined up on a dark bar: a gin sour, a vodka sour, a tequila sour, a smoking mezcal sour, a foam-capped amaretto sour, and a dark amaro sour, six unlabeled bottles behind them lit by a wall sconce

Six more sours, six bottles that aren't whiskey: gin, vodka, tequila, mezcal, amaretto, and a true Italian amaro. The format doesn't care what's in the glass, spirit, citrus, sweetener, shaken, works the same across all six. Two to start with, the closest cousin to a whiskey sour there is, and the least classic entry on the list.

1. Gin Sour

Thomas's 1862 book had a Gin Sour before it had anything close to a whiskey one. The format's oldest cousin gets the first slot here too.

2 oz (60 ml) Gin
¾ oz (22.5 ml) fresh lemon juice
¾ oz (22.5 ml) simple syrup (1:1)
Glass: Coupe or rocks over ice

Shake hard with ice. Strain into a coupe, or over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

2. Vodka Sour

The least classic entry in the series. Vodka sours exist and work, they just never built the same literature the others did, since a neutral spirit brings little of its own to the glass.

2 oz (60 ml) Vodka
¾ oz (22.5 ml) fresh lemon juice
¾ oz (22.5 ml) simple syrup (1:1)
Glass: Rocks, over ice

Shake hard with ice. Strain over fresh ice. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

All historical claims on this page are sourced in the full series: Part 1 and Part 2.

Did You Know?

Ten more recipes, five more scent pairings, and the amaretto-versus-amaro mixup didn't make this cut.
Find them in the series.

The ten builds not above: five more whiskey sours in Part 1, the Whiskey Smash, the New York Sour, the Gold Rush, the Penicillin, and the Big Apple Sour, my riff on Sam Ross's Harvest Sour, then four more bottles in Part 2, the Tequila Sour, the Mezcal Sour, the Amaretto Sour, and a true Amaro Sour.
Disaronno isn't an amaro. It's an amaretto, a different liqueur family, and the label only dropped the word "amaretto" in 2001. What's in the bottle didn't change.
One fragrance, Serge Lutens Ecrin de Fumee, anchors four of Part 1's eight drinks. The other four each needed a different bottle.
The whiskey sour first turns up in print in 1869. Egg white doesn't join a sour until 1883, later than the drink but not by much.

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