Just about the earliest reference to the consumption of vodka on these shores comes in Moses King’s 1892 Handbook of New York, where he mentions that it is consumed in the Russian quarters of town. This drink is a tribute to those pioneers, marrying as it does vodka with the best nineteenth-century mixological science has to offer. A vodka Old-Fashioned, in other words. Delancey Street was the main drag of the old Russian Lower East Side.
2 ounces vodka
1/2 teaspoon rich simple syrup
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters
To finish: lemon peel
Stir in a chilled Old Fashioned glass; add ice and twist lemon peel over the top.
