Food

How to Make a Fancy Free Cocktail: Fancy Free Recipe

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Mar 26, 2022 • 1 min read

The Fancy Free is a simple, classic cocktail made with bourbon, maraschino liqueur, and bitters. It is most often served in a rocks glass and garnished with a citrus peel or a maraschino cherry.

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History of the Fancy Free Cocktail

The Fancy Free is a great example of what became known during nineteenth-century America as an “improved cocktail.” As bar patrons grew tired and unimpressed by mixologists embracing European liqueurs like maraschino and Curaçao, many still wanted something that evoked the original whiskey cocktail, made the “old-fashioned” way. The Fancy Free adheres to the simplicity of the Old Fashioned cocktail but replaces sugar or simple syrup with a dash of maraschino cherry liqueur, giving the cocktail a hint of earthiness.

Fancy Free Cocktail Recipe

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makes

1 cocktail

prep time

3 min

total time

3 min

Ingredients

  1. 1

    Combine bourbon, maraschino liqueur, orange bitters, and Angostura bitters in a mixing glass, and stir until well diluted.

  2. 2

    Using a strainer, pour the contents into a rocks glass filled with ice or a single large ice cube.

  3. 3

    Garnish with a flamed orange twist, if desired. Serve cold.

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