Your Old Fashioned is Missing Some Banoffee Pie

Dessert cocktails used to be thicc. You’d order an Alexander or an Affogato and a martini glass filled with cream, booze and crème de cacao would come wobbling out from the bar. Or it would be a drink named for an Apple Strudel or a Crème Brulée, covered in cinnamon and drowning in fruit juice.

Thank god then for the biggest comeback in cocktail culture: the Milk Punch.

As a staple drink in the 1700s, this clarified silky liquid is thicc in all the best ways while still presenting as elegantly spiritous and light. First we lost our collective minds with Capitano’s Tiramisu Milk Punch in Melbourne. Now Sydney has an equally-smashable Banoffee Pie Old Fashioned from the Dolphin’s bar manager Josh Reynolds.

It’s a mix of bourbon, salted maple, clarified cream, sherry and banana. Reads easy enough but like all these hyper-tasty dessert riffs there’s a lot of work to transfer these big flavours into a cocktail that’s balanced and boozy yet clearly recognisable as the dessert in question. And this Banoffee Pie is just the right amount of childhood nostalgia stirred into your bourbon.

Here’s how Josh has gone about it.

Firstly he infuses cream with tonka beans and then adds in Old Forester bourbon. This mix is frozen overnight and drip thawed through a cloth to clarify it whilst capturing a silky texture. Next he makes a salted maple liqueur by combining vodka, smoked salt, sugar, water and freeze-dried maple syrup.

Finally the banana syrup is made, using both banana skin and banana flesh. Josh makes a banana skin oleo with equal parts banana skin to sugar that is left to macerate for two days. With the flesh he creates layers of banana slices and sugar using equal weights of sugar to fruit.

When it comes time to assemble the cocktail, additional cream sherry and bourbon are added. So, if you can be bothered to create all the parts you’ll be able to recreate it. However, we’d strongly suggest a visit to Surry Hill’s Dolphin Hotel where you can order one for $21. Much, much easier.

Josh Reynold’s Banoffee Pie Old Fashioned

Garnish: Grated Nutmeg
Method: Stir ingredients over ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass.
15ml cream washed Old Forester bourbon
15ml salted maple liqueur
10ml banana syrup
10ml cream sherry
20ml Old Forester bourbon