Name: American Trilogy
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 25 ml Applejack brandy; 25 ml Rye whiskey 50% abv; 7.5 ml Brown sugar syrup; 2 dash Orange bitters

American Trilogy
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Glass:

Photographed in an UB Koto Old Fashioned 30cl

Ingredients:
⁵⁄₆ fl oz	Applejack brandy bottled-in-bond (50% alc./vol)
⁵⁄₆ fl oz	Straight rye whiskey (100 proof /50% alc./vol.)
¹⁄₄ fl oz	Demerara/Muscovado/brown sugar syrup (2 sugar to 1 water)
2 dash	Orange Bitters by Angostura

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

Prepare:

Select and pre-chill an OLD-FASHIONED GLASS.
Prepare garnish of fat and long orange zest twist.

How to make:

STIR all ingredients with ice.
STRAIN into ice-filled glass (preferably over a large cube or chunk of block ice).

Garnish:

EXPRESS orange zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

To adhere to the original recipe, you should smash a sugar cube and then painstakingly stir this with bitters into a paste. Life is just too short to faff around, so instead, I've used pre-dissolved sugar (syrup). Depending on your personal tastes you may want to reduce this syrup to a mere 5ml or it up to 10ml. Syrup allows you to find your personal sweet spot and then consistently hit it. Once achieved, you've a delicious subtly cider-influenced Rye Old-Fashioned.

View readers' comments

AKA: Rye Old-Fashioned

Variations/similar cocktails:

Diamondback

History:

Adapted from a recipe created in 2006 by Richard Boccato and Michael McIlroy at Milk & Honey in New York City. By the following year it was a staple at sibling bar Little Branch bar and American Trilogy continues to be a popular cocktail at Attaboy, the bar that occupies the former Milk & Honey site.

Originally built in the glass with a sugar cube and made with three American ingredients, hence the name: rye whisky, applejack and Regan's Orange Bitters.

More cocktails by Michael McIlroy

Nutrition:

One serving of American Trilogy contains 136 calories

Alcohol content:

1.4 standard drinks
34.14% alc./vol. (68.28° proof)
19.9 grams of pure alcohol

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Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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P N

4th November 2025 at 15:59

I am gonna try this with agave syrup

Simon Sedgley

16th September 2025 at 11:56

We do this in a Nick and Nora glass. By general consensus, Dashiell Hammett wrote four 'great' novels, not three, but who's counting?

Cassandra Adams

16th September 2025 at 12:23

I suppose that begs the question of who wrote three?

1 reply

Calvin Grant

8th July 2025 at 01:56

Eighty proof V.S. calvados 30ml. Rittenhouse bottled in bond and 7.5 rich moscovado. Hit that sweet spot! Excellent.

Calvin Grant

24th July 2025 at 02:41

This time Laird's bottled in bond, Woodinville 90° rye and half muscovado half rich cane syrup (7.5ml). Going forward will be sure to use all dark muscovado syrup as this really makes it for me.

Peter McCarthy

25th September 2024 at 05:52

Made with Laird's Bottled-in-Bond & Wild Turkey 101 Rye. Pretty tasty as-is. Apple is balanced. Whiskey is smoothed out. Subtle orange. and brown sugar. Not too sweet for me.

G. M. Genovese

12th July 2024 at 18:34

I've tried this about a half dozen times now. Like y'all have suggested, reducing the sugar - in my case, to 5 ml - has resulted in a more harmonious drink. This in addition to skewing the spirit specs to 6:5, in favor of Old Forester 100-proof rye, which somehow has been a stalwart ingredient.

Darren Companion

1st July 2024 at 03:55

Made with half the Demerara and it works! Orange forward and refreshing. We had to use apple brandy as applejack is not available in Canada. Nice drink!