Butterscotch Den Old Fashioned

May 13

I’m a fan of butter in general, and on the sweet spectrum absolutely love butterscotch too. Butterscotch is the simple combination of melted brown sugar and butter, mixed with cream. Unlike caramel, which uses a similar formula but with white sugar, butterscotch is less fussy and easier to make, which is a great trade off, even if it may not be as rich or complex in flavor. If you are a fan of the classic “Old Fashioned” cocktail, a traditional whiskey drink sweetened with a bit of sugar and a dash or two of cocktail bitters, you may have experimented with different types of sugar, which can dramatically change the whole drink. Now that you mention it, how about butterscotch?

There’s probably no better place to try a butterscotch Old Fashioned than at Sacramento, California’s retro cool Butterscotch Den, a “seventies” style grill-your-own steakhouse, cocktail bar and lounge. Their signature house drink represents the bar’s desired ethos of low-brow high-brow, having fun with using butterscotch in the typically more sophisticated cocktail, but using high quality ingredients and an elevated process one might expect from bar veteran and co-owner Trevor Eastor. The base consists of Tennessee whiskey (unique for its charcoal filtering) with hints of rye and rum, which is sweetened by an elixir they call “Butterscotch Magic” (butterscotch liqueur plus an equal amount of demerara syrup). As if that weren’t enough, the drink is finished with butterscotch Chartreuse bitters, an outrageous and outstanding homemade concoction of butterscotch candy dissolved into Angostura butters and mixed with green Chartreuse. Now that’s my butter! Cheers!