“Robert orders three shots of whiskey and passes them between us. Well, this wasn’t how I expected my night to be going.” - Dad Avatar, Dream Daddy

Inspiration

If there’s one thing that’s clear about Robert Small, he likes his whisky neat. A brooding individual, Robert strikes me as a fellow who would scoff at the thought of adding anything to his whisky, so if I had to make a drink for him, it would have to respect the spirit at its core. If there ever was a drink that paid homage in such a way, it’d be the Old Fashioned.

During the events of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, the player character can go on a date with Robert where they widdle pieces of wood on a clifftop overlooking Maple Bay, the town where the game takes place. Robert’s Old Fashioned embodies Maple Bay. It takes inspiration from local flavors (I assume) and the people who inhabit it (like Robert, who smokes, drinks whisky, and loves messing with people)

Workshopping

The Spirit

An Old Fashioned cocktail is essentially three components: spirit, sweetener, and bitters. Robert’s a fan of whisky, so it made sense for whisky to be the spirit at the core of this drink. I’ve been reading through the Cocktail Codex as a means to learn more about the DNA of cocktail mixology, and I came across a passage about using nicer spirits in cocktails. Oftentimes, expensive spirits need not be mixed with ingredients of lesser quality (he poshly says, “expensive booze, plus cheap mixers? ewwwww”). One technique for doing so is splitting the base of a drink that uses a nicer spirit with a complementary one. The book specifically calls out splitting single-malt scotch whiskey with blended scotch whiskey, and that’s what I’ve done here. I felt that if I had to defile Robert’s whisky, that I’d at least do it right (and not waste it).

The Sweetener

The other components of the Old Fashioned include the sweetener and the bitters. The sweetener that felt appropriate here was a gold maple syrup, for our hometown of Maple Bay. I opted for a lighter maple syrup instead of a dark one since the lighter one blended better with the slight brine flavors of the maritime single-malt scotch used in this recipe.

The Bitters

To top things off, we needed something bitter. I found during some experiments that cocktail smoke can add bitterness, a pleasant one if you are careful. Shaving off some wood chips from a block of untreated and dried maple wood made for a perfect fit to top off Robert’s spirited namesake. I honestly couldn’t tell whether the maple wood smoke tasted any similar to the maple syrup, but they both come from a maple tree, so I’ll take it.

Flavor Analysis

An appropriate aroma of smoked wood greets you as you sip Robert’s Old Fashioned. You are greeted by a complementary smokiness with notes of brine and vanilla. A smooth transition lightens to a subtle maple sweetness that extends those initial notes of scotch further. The flavor ends with a slight bitterness and a dry mouthfeel.