Skip to content
Sip Curator
All cocktails Rusty Nail

Log in to see whether your bar can pour this

Rusty Nail

Classic/vintage · Hall of Fame and must know/try · Nightcap/sipping

4.3 198 ratings

Ingredients

2 oz Scotch whisky
2/3 oz Honey herbal liqueur
2 dash Aromatic bitters

How to make

Serve in a old-fashioned glass

Prepare

  1. 1 Select and pre-chill an OLD-FASHIONED GLASS.
  2. 2 Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist.

Method

  1. 3 STIR all ingredients with ice.
  2. 4 STRAIN into ice-filled glass.

Garnish

  1. 5 EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Made it?

How did it pour?

Rate this drink

With an account you can score a drink once you have poured it and keep a note on how you made it. Your score and your note are yours alone; share your ingredient list if you want to, and other members see how you pour it.

Flavour profile

31.5% alc./vol. · 1.8 standard drinks · 196 calories

History

The liqueur smooths and combines wonderfully with Scotch whisky. Proportions of Scotch to Drambuie vary, with 3:1 appearing to be preferred by most.

Said to have been created in 1942 at a Hawaiian bar for the artist Theodore Anderson but popularised during the 1950s at New York City's Club 21. David Wondrich has traced the mixing of scotch whisky with Drambuie liqueur back to 1937 and a drink called B.I.F. for the British Industry Fair. However, given that Drambuie originated in an Edinburgh cellar in 1908 we suspect the combo was first tried decades earlier.