Milwaukee writer Jeanette Hurt has published books on a variety of culinary subjects, from a paean to cider to the history of Wisconsin cocktails to a how-to on embracing cauliflower to a cookbook using ingredients from Aldi and beyond.

This time, Hurt turns her attention to one of the most classic of cocktails.

“The Whiskey Sour” is published in hardcover by the University Press of Kentucky and not only are there countless recipes for variations on this stalwart, there is also a deep dive into the history of the cocktail, which is the part I enjoyed the most.

I caught up with my former Milwaukee Sentinel colleague to ask her about researching the book and how many whiskey sours she needed to concoct and taste in preparation for this new volume.

OnMilwaukee: Why the whiskey sour?

Jeanette Hurt: I wanted to do another cocktail book, and during the height of the pandemic, I met the publisher of the University of Kentucky Press. She said she wanted to work with me, and we talked. The University of Kentucky Press already had published books on the old fashioned, the mint julep and the Manhattan, and all that was missing was the whiskey sour.  

It was a natural fit.

This is a cocktail with a long history. Why do you think it has endured so long?

Classic cocktails are classics for a reason – they're delicious. The whiskey sour has never gone out of style – not even in the dark days of cocktails, aka the 1970s and ‘80s, even if it was made with sour mix from a gun. Also, to paraphrase a distillery owner – Dave Colt, owner of Sun King Brewery and Distillery – the whiskey sour is like pizza – even a bad pizza is still good.

It's also survived because at its heart, it's a simple cocktail made of three ingredients: sugar, lemon juice and whiskey. It's also, of the classic whiskey cocktails, the most riffed upon, and the one with the most progeny in that there are dozens of riffs that have become their own classic cocktail like the Paper Plane and the Gold Rush. Those are two modern classics, but there's also the Scarlet O'Hara, the Ward Eight and so many more.

Discovering its history – its real history – was one of the most challenging things about this book. As I discovered with “Wisconsin Cocktails,” most of what was written and said about the brandy old fashioned was wrong. So, too, much of what I learned about the whiskey sour was wrong.  In fact, if you do a web search about the history of the whiskey sour, the wrong story will come up.

The first cocktail book to publish a recipe of the whiskey sour was NOT the first edition of Jerry Thomas's book. He had a gin sour and a brandy sour, but no whiskey sour in that edition. A whiskey sour recipe didn't show up until the third edition – after he had already died –  and his publisher wanted to include cocktails that were popular.

Does Wisconsin have a whiskey sour tradition or traditions, a la the old fashioned?  

Well, you can get a whiskey sour in any bar in the state. If it's a dive bar, it will likely be made with a sour gun, but if it's a proper cocktail bar, it will be made with fresh citrus, perhaps an interesting simple syrup and egg white.

But, the Wisconsin old fashioned, made with whiskey and sour, is a riff on the whiskey sour. And if you want the best version of that, substitute regular sour soda with a grapefruit sour soda like Top Note.

There are a lot of recipes in the book; did you try them all? Was it challenging?

I tried pretty much all of them. It was a hard job, but someone had to do it.

Do you have one or a few that emerged as favorites?

For a basic whiskey sour, I would use the golden formula: 2 ounces whiskey, 3/4 ounce simple and 3/4 ounce lemon and lime juices (equal parts), egg white and just a touch of saline. It's sublime.

I also really liked the Sly Rabbit and Christian Grey, which I discovered at Brandywine and Edith, respectively.

Is this the start of a series? What's next?

I'm not sure what's next. This book took more than three years of writing and research. But, in the course of writing it, I've grown quite fond of whiskey so I could foreseeably write another book related to whiskey.