What's the easiest bourbon cocktail to make at home?

A Bourbon Highball. Two ingredients — bourbon and chilled soda water over ice. It takes about 15 seconds, requires no special tools, and lets a good bourbon do the talking. If you want a touch more flavor, swap the soda for ginger beer and you have a Bourbon Buck.

Do I need bitters for an Old Fashioned?

Yes — bitters are what separate an Old Fashioned from a glass of sweetened bourbon. Angostura is the standard, and a couple dashes is enough. Without bitters you lose the depth and the slight bitterness that balances the sugar. They're inexpensive and a single bottle lasts years.

What's the best bourbon for a 2-ingredient cocktail?

A wheated bourbon like our Bud & Dewey's works well in highballs and bucks because the softer wheat profile blends easily with mixers. For drinks where the bourbon stands more on its own — like an Old Fashioned — a higher-proof or rye-forward bourbon adds more spice and grip.

Can I substitute simple syrup with sugar in a cocktail?

You can, but it doesn't dissolve well in cold liquid. For an Old Fashioned, muddling a sugar cube with a few drops of bitters and water works because you give it time to break down. For shaken or stirred drinks, simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water, dissolved) mixes instantly and gives a more consistent result.

How much bourbon should be in a simple cocktail?

Two ounces is the standard pour for a single cocktail. That's enough to be the dominant flavor without overpowering the mixer. For a tall drink like a highball or buck, you can stretch to 5-6 oz of mixer over ice. For a lower-proof option, an ounce and a half also works.

Simple Bourbon Cocktails: 5 Easy Drinks With 2-3 Ingredients

Five simple bourbon cocktails with 2-3 ingredients each — from a Highball to a pared-down Old Fashioned. Plus tips on which bourbon to reach for.

What Makes a Bourbon Cocktail "Simple"

A simple cocktail is one you can build in the time it takes to listen to a song. No shaker required, no liqueurs you'll use once and never again, no sugar syrup that took a separate trip to the grocery store. Two or three ingredients, a glass, ice, and a stir.

The reason simple cocktails have stuck around for a century isn't laziness. It's that good bourbon doesn't need much help. The sweetness from the corn, the spice from the rye or wheat, the vanilla and caramel pulled from a charred oak barrel — those flavors carry a drink. Add too many ingredients and you start covering them up.

Every cocktail below has 2-3 ingredients. Every one is something you can make tonight without a shopping trip.

Pick the Right Bourbon First

Before the recipes, a quick word about what to pour. In a 2-ingredient drink, the bourbon is the drink. A weak or harsh pour can't hide behind anything. Pick something you'd happily sip neat.

For lighter, more mixable drinks — highballs, bucks, anything tall and effervescent — a softer bourbon with a wheated mash bill plays well. Our Bud & Dewey's Wheated Bourbon is built for this. Wheat replaces the rye in the mash, which softens the spice and lets the bourbon meld into the mixer instead of fighting it.

For drinks where the bourbon is the centerpiece — Old Fashioned, Manhattan, sips on a rock — a more assertive bourbon stands up better. Our Straight Bourbon is a traditional rye-forward bourbon with the spice and grip those drinks need. The Smoked Straight Bourbon adds a hand-smoked layer that turns an Old Fashioned into something darker and more interesting.

The federal definition of bourbon — at least 51% corn, new charred oak barrels, made in the U.S. — is set out in the TTB's distilled spirits product categories. Anything that fits that definition can carry the name, and the differences between bourbons come down to mash bill, proof, barrel size, and aging time.

Five Simple Bourbon Cocktails

The Bourbon Highball (2 ingredients)

2 oz bourbon
4-6 oz chilled soda water
Ice

Fill a tall glass with ice. Pour the bourbon, top with soda water. Don't stir hard — a single light stir is enough. A lemon peel pinched over the top is optional but worth it.

The Highball is the most underrated bourbon cocktail in the country. The Japanese turned the whisky highball into a national obsession by treating each step with care: oversized ice, very cold soda, a measured pour. The same approach works with bourbon. Use the biggest, clearest ice you have, and pour the soda gently down the side of the glass to keep the carbonation alive.

Bourbon and Branch (2 ingredients)

2 oz bourbon
1 oz still water (or to taste)
1 large ice cube

Pour the bourbon over a single big ice cube in an Old Fashioned glass. Add a splash of still water — historically, bourbon-country branch water from a creek, but cold filtered water is fine. Stir three times.

This is the drink to order if you want to actually taste a bourbon. The water opens up the aromatics, the ice slows the dilution, and there's nothing else competing. It's the version bourbon distillers drink at the end of a tasting when they want to know what the spirit really tastes like.

Bourbon Buck / Bourbon and Ginger (2 ingredients)

2 oz bourbon
4-5 oz ginger beer
Ice; lime wedge optional

Build over ice in a tall glass. Squeeze a lime wedge if you have one. The ginger does the heavy lifting — use a real ginger beer (Fever-Tree, Bundaberg, Q) rather than a sweet ginger ale, and the difference is dramatic.

Bud & Dewey's wheated profile is especially good here because the soft sweetness of the wheat plays with the ginger's heat without competing. This is the drink for porch evenings in July.

Old Fashioned, Pared Down (3 ingredients)

2 oz bourbon
1 sugar cube (or 1/4 oz simple syrup)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 large ice cube; orange peel for garnish

In an Old Fashioned glass, drop the sugar cube and saturate it with the bitters and a few drops of water. Muddle until the sugar dissolves. Add the bourbon and stir. Drop in a large ice cube and stir again until cold. Express an orange peel over the top and drop it in.

The classic Old Fashioned is just whiskey, sugar, and bitters — the original definition of a cocktail. Cherries, orange slices, club soda, and the rest are all later additions. A pared-down Old Fashioned with a single big ice cube and a peel is what the drink is supposed to be.

Mint Julep (3 ingredients)

2.5 oz bourbon
1 tsp sugar (or 1/2 oz simple syrup)
6-8 fresh mint leaves
Crushed ice; mint sprig for garnish

In a julep cup or rocks glass, gently press the mint leaves with the sugar — you want to bruise them, not pulverize them. Add a small splash of water if using granulated sugar to help it dissolve. Pack the glass with crushed ice, pour the bourbon over, and stir until the cup frosts. Top with more crushed ice and a healthy mint sprig.

The Mint Julep is the Kentucky Derby's official drink, and it's one of the few cocktails that actually benefits from being mostly ice. As the ice melts, the mint and sugar slowly bloom into the bourbon. Drink it through the mint sprig — that's where the aroma lives.

Common Mistakes That Ruin Simple Cocktails

When you only have two or three ingredients, every shortcut shows up in the glass. A few that turn good drinks into mediocre ones:

Old or warm soda water. A flat highball is just bourbon and water. Buy small bottles, keep them cold, open them right before you pour.

Cheap ginger beer. A sweet ginger ale gives you sugar and bourbon — not a bourbon and ginger. Pay a few extra dollars for a brand with real ginger and noticeable heat.

Small ice cubes. The little crescent cubes from a fridge ice maker melt fast and water down a drink before you finish it. For Old Fashioneds and bourbon-and-branch, freeze water in silicone molds to make 2-inch cubes. They look better and they last.

Bitters left in the cabinet for years. Bitters do go stale. If yours have lost their punch, replace them — a fresh bottle of Angostura runs about ten dollars and lasts a year of regular use.

Pouring at the wrong temperature. Bourbon stored above the stove or in direct sun loses its sharper aromatics. Keep the bottle in a dark cabinet at room temperature, and don't refrigerate it — cold bourbon is a duller bourbon.

Where to Get Smoky Valley Bourbon

Our bourbons are available in our Marquette tasting room Thursday through Saturday, and at 16 retail locations across Kansas including stores in Salina, Hutchinson, McPherson, and Wichita. If you'd rather try several before committing, our $10 tour and tasting covers all three bourbons plus our rye and Kernza whiskeys in a 30-45 minute session.

For the full set of cocktail recipes — including detailed step-by-step instructions for sours, mules, manhattans, and more — visit our Recipes section.