Bourbon Cocktails: 12 That Aren't an Old Fashioned

Bourbon is in more drinks on our site than any whiskey except the generic “whiskey” entry, and about four out of five people who own a bottle make exactly one thing with it.

So: everything else.

What bourbon does that rye doesn’t

Legally it’s at least 51% corn. In practice most bottles run 65–75% corn, and corn is sweet.

That’s the whole difference. Rye is spicy and dry, bourbon is round and sweet, and it changes what each one needs from a drink. Rye wants a heavier sweetener to push against. Bourbon usually wants acid or bitterness to cut it, because the sweetness is already there.

Which is why bourbon sours are better than rye sours, and rye Manhattans are better than bourbon Manhattans. Not a rule, but close enough to work from.

The sours

Start here. This is what bourbon is best at.

Bourbon Stone Sour — bourbon, simple syrup, orange juice, lemon juice.

A stone sour is a sour with orange juice in it. The OJ softens the lemon and adds body, and against bourbon’s corn sweetness it works better than it does against almost any other base. This is the drink I’d hand someone who says they don’t like whiskey.

Basin Street — bourbon, triple sec, lemon juice.

Same idea, tighter. Triple sec instead of syrup means the sweetener brings its own flavor. Three ingredients, shaken, straight up. Underrated.

The bitter ones

Where bourbon gets interesting.

Southern Discomfort — bourbon, blood orange juice, Aperol, rhubarb bitters. Aperol and bourbon shouldn’t work as well as they do. The bitter orange sits right on top of the corn sweetness and the whole thing balances without any syrup at all.

Orange Rose — bourbon, Aperol, bitters. The stripped-down version of the same idea. Three ingredients, stirred, over a big cube.

Kentucky Colonel #2 — bourbon, Bénédictine, orange bitters. Bénédictine is honey and herbs and it does something to bourbon that nothing else does. If you’ve got a bottle gathering dust, this is the drink.

The Director — bourbon, sweet vermouth, Amer Picon, ginger brandy. Four ingredients and three of them are obscure. Worth it if you have them, skip it if you don’t.

The simple ones

Bourbon and Water is two ingredients and it’s on this list on purpose.

A half ounce of water in two ounces of bourbon opens it up — drops the ethanol burn enough that you can actually smell the barrel. This isn’t a compromise drink, it’s what a lot of distillers do at tastings. Try it before you dismiss it.

Bloody O.J. — tomato juice, soda water, orange juice, bourbon. A brunch drink and a strange one. The tomato and the corn sweetness go together better than the description suggests.

The dessert one

Bourbon a la Creme — vanilla, bourbon, brown crème de cacao.

Sweet, short, served after dinner. The cacao picks up the vanilla that the barrel already put in the whiskey, so it reads as more coherent than a chocolate-and-whiskey drink has any business being.

The ones with other whiskey in them

Two builds stack bourbon with other whiskeys, and they’re novelty rather than craft.

Three Wise Men and Their Bastard Cousin is Tennessee whiskey, bourbon, scotch and tequila. Cutty Beam is scotch and bourbon, straight.

Neither is good. Both get ordered.

For more on the wider category, our whiskey cocktails roundup covers rye and scotch alongside, the mixer guide handles the two-ingredient end, the rye cocktails piece makes the case for the other mash bill, and the builder will tell you what an open bottle still makes with nothing else in the house.

What to buy

For mixing, don’t overspend. A bourbon in the middle of the shelf at 45–50% ABV mixes better than an expensive one at 40% — the higher proof survives dilution, and the nuance you paid for in a sipping bottle disappears the moment it meets lemon juice.

Bottled-in-bond is the sweet spot if you can find it. 50% ABV by law, usually cheap, and it holds up in every drink above.

The single-barrel and small-batch bottles are for drinking neat. Putting one in a stone sour isn’t a crime but it is a waste, and anyone who tells you they can taste the difference through three-quarters of an ounce of lemon juice is telling you about their price tag, not their palate.

Last modified on September 6, 2026