How the Old Fashioned, Martini and Crusta are all the same drink (Almost...)

Or "How flavour, ice and garnish got mixed up and started a cocktail revolution"

The Earliest Beginnings...

It all began with the juleps, toddies and slings of yesteryear. Before the commercial ice industry and fancy glassware was a thing, the best way to make alcohol more palatable was to mix the stuff with sugar, water and occasional bittering agents. Sometimes the water was cold, sometimes it was hot. Sometimes the bitters were fresh herbs, sometimes it was a liquid tincture.

The term Julep goes back to the 14th century when it was simply a flavoured medicinal water while Toddy is first found written down in 1609 in reference to the sweet (sometimes fermented) sap of palm trees.

The Sling was simply a later name for what's essentially also a common Toddy. You could have a cold sling and a hot toddy, but also a cold toddy and a hot sling. Having Toddy and Sling being interchangeable is sometimes very confusing when trying to understand the history of drinks. Having different names for what's essentially the same thing is both a blessing and a curse. (We'll dive into both later!)

Sometimes multiple elements evolve in such closeness that their differences are almost imperceptible. In these instances, the great question arises of where the boundary is for unique vs the same.

To understand why the Old Fashioned, the Martini and the Crusta are all the same drink (and why it matters!), we must first take a side step into one of the most important intellectual battles of the 18th century.

A System of the Natural

On the 13th of December, 1735 the first edition of Systema Naturae was released. Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist, had spent most of his life studying plants, animals and minerals. After dreaming up foundational structures and theories that would encompass all living things, he released his work in this book that went on to become an essential reference for future scientists.

In his introduction, Linneaus considered simple structures the goal of science:

"The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves; this notion consists in having a true idea of the objects; objects are distinguished and known by classifying them methodically and giving them appropriate names. Therefore, classification and name-giving will be the foundation of our science."

Linneaus prioritised the naming and grouping of things based on their physical characteristics and behaviour. How large a textbook was put together to classify the entire kingdom of plants, animals and minerals? 15 pages...

15 pages seemed an over-simplification. At least that's what the French naturalist, Georges-Louis de Buffon believed. Born 4 months after Linneaus in 1707, he grew up with close (but insignificant) ties to the French elite. His father was a civil servant tasked with collecting the Gabelle (the national salt tax of France) which meant everyone knew his family, and everyone hated them!

In 1739 Buffon was appointed head of the Jardin de Roi (Also called "Garden of Plants") in Paris where he was a key figure in shaping not only the garden itself, but the natural sciences. He quickly became aware of Linneaus' work and was an open critic of the system's simplicity and logic.
Being well connected, and having the ability to write eloquently and formally, he received the support of King Louis XIV which allowed Buffon to announce the intention to write a 15 volume encyclopaedia of the natural world to compete against Linneaus.

In September 1749, the first three volumes of Histoire Naturelle were published. With 1600 pages in total length, this first release made Linneaus' Systema Naturae look like a children's book in comparison.

At a glance, the works of Buffon would seem superior. He did after all have royalty behind him, he wrote 1600 pages of eloquent, detailed and formal scientific writing that would make any university professor wet himself with excitement, and his students fast asleep from boredom...

There was however one minor caveat. While Linneaus had simplified the whole natural world into a 15 page system, Buffon had managed to cover only the history of Earth and humans (as the only animal) through his first three volumes.

He released the long awaited 4th volume in 1753 which added 544 pages to the grand lexicon of animals. How much did he cover with this?
Three more animals... And they were the super exciting local ones of the horse, the donkey and the bull.

Without a doubt, Buffon's work was more detailed. It was also much better informed due to the resources he had available and the far reaching studies he collected from around the world.

But was it useful for teaching anyone anything about the natural world beyond the most elite, well educated mega nerds of the 18th century?

This is the real question to be asked when it comes to learning anything. Whether it's the natural world or it's the food and drinks we consume, this battle between simplified universal theories and the intensely detailed truth is of key importance!

So which one is it?..

Defining The Cocktail

The famous philosopher Plato argued that truth can only exist in abstractions and that specific forms are highly opinionated. In contrast to this, his student Aristotle argued that one could only fully understand the world by studying the details minutely.
This is, in essence, the same dispute between Linnaeus and Buffon.

I think both are correct but for very different reasons!

According to Aristotle, the headline of this article is an abomination and without a doubt false.
According to Plato, there's truth to it.
According to Jerry Thomas, the truth is somewhere in the middle...

The classic definition of a cocktail is based on spirits, sugar, water and bitters. When the commercial ice trade gained speed in the 1830s, the water sometimes became an invisible or passive addition through the melting of ice.

Adding to this the varied styles of glassware in wide use around the bars of the mid-late 19th century, we see why learning a multitude of cocktails quickly becomes exhausting!

When Jerry Thomas released his 1862 Bartender's Guide he put "the Cocktail & Crusta" together in the same section and wrote:

"The 'Crusta' is an improvement on the 'Cocktail'..."

We'll start with the Cocktail and get back to the Crusta after a minor detour.

The traditional Cocktail is what we today call an Old Fashioned. A combination of spirit, sugar and bitters (and water). The term for an "Old Fashioned Cocktail" came about in the 1880s as a consumer call to taking a step back from all these fancy twists and instead serving the simpler good old fashioned cocktails.

Jerry Thomas defined his "Gin Cocktail" as:

3 or 4 dashes of gum syrup
2 dashes of Bogart's bitters
1 wine-glass (2 oz / ~60ml) of Gin
1 or 2 dashes of Curacao
Lemon peel

After the classic cocktail came the "Fancy Cocktail". Drinks historians widely agree that the development of the Martini probably originates in this initial first step. Jerry Thomas defines a "Fancy Gin Cocktail" as "same as the gin cocktail, except that it is strained in a fancy wine-glass...". Now there's the obvious question of Vermouth, but technically (at least simplified) Vermouth is just a combination of bittering herbs and sugar macerated in wine which keeps us firmly on the simple path of spirits, sugar, bitters and water for the classic template.
(For more on this, see my previous article The Wet Martini Does Not Exist)

Then there's the Crusta. Some believe this is the original grandparent drink to the Sidecar and Sour family of drinks, and there's definitely grounds for that, but here we'll consider the original definitions and I'll explain why it matters.
Today the Crusta is considered a mix of citrus juice, sugar, spirit and often a flavouring such as curacao in good measures. It's much closer to a sour drink than it is an Old Fashioned style cocktail.

Jerry Thomas defined the Crusta in similar fashion as he did the Fancy Gin Cocktail. He simply referenced another drink that was widely known.

"Crusta is made the same as a fancy cocktail, with a little lemon juice and a small lump of ice added...".

He doesn't specify the volume of lemon juice in his 1862 book, but in the posthumous 1887 edition it's a single dash and Harry Johnson, in 1882, specified the same.
(The 1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks specify no juice at all)

What really made the Crusta stand out was the sugar crusted rim and the very long lemon peel fitted tightly inside the rim of the glass. The Crusta, in a sense, was all about the garnish game!
Similarly, the Fancy Gin Cocktail (and later Manhattan, Martinez and Martini) were all just cocktails served in fancier glassware.

However from an ingredient and procedure perspective these were nothing more than classic cocktails with a touch of citrus to garnish and mix things up.

Why This Matters

Considering the differing views of Linnaeus and Buffon or Plato and Aristotle, we get the simple question of whether detail or abstraction matters the most.

I think for learning new things abstraction is a POWERFUL tool to help understanding, while specific details help only in perfection of existing knowledge.

Of course the Old Fashioned, the Martini and the Crusta are different drinks today. The Old Fashioned is served in a short glass over ice while the Martini is a crispy clean mix of gin and vermouth served in a stemmed glass.

The Crusta is sometimes stirred and sometimes shaken, depending on where you get it, and the volume of lemon has increased over time as the drink evolved.

Considering these as different drinks is important to a well trained bartender as it allows for an elevated guest experience with serving variations in the use of ice, glassware and garnish.

However from a learning standpoint it's important to recognise that if we remove the ice, the garnish and the glassware, all of these drinks are from the same template of flavour balance which is at the absolute core of crafting drinks.

Spirits, sugar and bitters diluted with ice cold water and sometimes spiced up with a touch of citrus either from the lemon oils or the juice itself.