When it comes to the drinks states have designated as their official beverages, the choices are, quite frankly, bland.
Twenty claim milk. Indiana adopted water as its own. Only two states — Virginia and Alabama — have opted for an alcoholic option, and even then it’s the same: whiskey.
But now, Wisconsin might be the first member of the union to name an official state cocktail — that is, if a bill proposed by state legislators gains majority support.
The contender for this honor is one that might leave Kentuckians feeling faint: the brandy old-fashioned.
As the name implies, the drink is like an old-fashioned with a twist — the typically used bourbon swapped out for the fruity distilled spirit. But the cocktail takes quite a few more creative liberties. Instead of bourbon, sugar and bitters, the Badger State’s version is made with brandy and a muddled mixture of maraschino cherries, orange slices, sugar and bitters. The “sweet” version is topped with Sprite, while the “sour” has grapefruit soda. The “press” version — short for Presbyterian — has a mix of club soda and Sprite. Possible garnishes include orange wedges, olives, pickled veggies, hard-boiled eggs and, naturally, cheese curds.
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Even before two Republican lawmakers behind the bill — state Rep. Jon Plumer and state Sen. Cory Tomczyk — began their quest to name the brandy old-fashioned as the state’s “it” drink, Robert Simonson, a drinks writer and a Wisconsin native, wrote in his 2014 book “The Old Fashioned” that the cocktail “was as close to an official state drink that the Badger State ever had.”
“It’s a sweet, fruity soup, devoid of much delicacy,” Simonson wrote. “But love it or hate it, you’ve got to pay the old girl some respect.”
By the late 19th century, the Badger State was still drinking the old fashioned like the rest of the world does. So, what made Wisconsin spice up a beloved classic?
According to author and cocktail historian Jeanette Hurt, three forces were in play: prohibition, World War II and the mid-century love of supper clubs.
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Though the sale and import of alcohol was banned from 1920 to 1933, booze was still flowing freely across taverns and gangster hangouts in rural Wisconsin, where even mobster Al Capone had a refuge. The drinks, however, were of questionable quality, “so bartenders came up with adding muddled fruit and soda to hide the bad taste, and it’s a tradition that we kept after Prohibition ended,” Hurt said.
Once the alcohol ban ended, companies were just starting to produce spirits again when the war overseas took a massive hit on the distilling industry. After the United States officially joined World War II in 1941, alcohol became a war product used to produce ammunition, synthetic rubber and medicines. At the same time, materials used in liquor production — like glass, wood and grain — were also rationed as part of the ongoing war effort.
The situation didn’t improve much in the first few years following the conflict, as distilleries shipped grain to feed a war-torn Europe. As a result, America was running on lousy booze — until Wisconsin distributors caught wind that California-based Christian Brothers had an aging cache of over 30,000 barrels of brandy.
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The distributors bought them all, Hurt said. Wisconsin was “swimming in good brandy,” or enough to fill 2½ Olympic-size pools with the spirit. Suddenly people “could choose between bad whiskey or good brandy,” she added.
Share this articleShare“If you were going to order an old-fashioned, you could get it made with either questionable whiskey or good brandy,” Hurt said. “We’re not stupid — we chose brandy! And that’s how we started drinking brandy, and then our kids started drinking brandy, and then our grandkids, and suddenly everybody’s drinking brandy.”
By the 1960s, the brandy old-fashioned was everywhere across the Badger State — but it was about to get an added oomph. At supper clubs, amid drinks and conversations, patrons delighted in cheese spreads and plates filled with pickled veggies — which then slowly wound up atop cocktails. “And that’s why the old-fashioned can have these very unusual toppings,” Hurt said.
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Since then, Wisconsin has become the center of the “brandy belt,” as it is known, which stretches over an upper swath of the Midwest. Nowadays, California-based producer Korbel claims that Wisconsin consumes more than half of its brandy cases sold each year.
“Once we like something, we stick with it,” Hurt said. “Wisconsin’s drinking culture dates back to the 1800s and, because of our German heritage, we have an ethos here of Gemütlichkeit, a word for the good-natured coziness of getting together with family and friends.”
Plus, Hurt added, the state has a penchant for taking classic recipes and adding its own flair. “I mean, this is state were the Bloody Mary is outfitted with a full meal on top of it,” Hurt said. “It’s not just a pickle or a lime or a couple of olives. You’ll get all of those, but you’ll also get cheese curds, a shrimp, sometimes an entire roast rotisserie chicken or an entire burger or fried mac and cheese — and then, of course, a chaser of beer.”
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Evan Hughes, the co-founder and chief executive of Central Standard Craft Distillery in Milwaukee, said the brandy old-fashioned is just a part of Wisconsin culture. He had his first, he recalled, when he turned 21 with his father at the Roxy Supper Club in Oshkosh, where he grew up.
“It’s what you drink when you’re around family and friends,” he said. “Weddings — any celebration. I’ve been to funerals where there was an old-fashioned bar.”
Last year, his company launched a hall of fame to honor superfans of the drink; hundreds of nominations came in, he said. The inaugural class included a grandfather whose allegiance to the cocktail earned him the nickname “Old Fashioned.”
“It was amazing,” he said. “People would write, like, entire books about how much they loved them. There is so much passion for it.”
Nevertheless, tourists encountering the cocktail for the first time might not be so sure.
“People will definitely give you the side eye over it,” he says. “They might think it’s weird, but we’re proud of it.”
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