The Recipe Room is the master index of every Whiskey Sour recipe on RyeCentral. Start with the classic rye sour if you have never made one — two ounces of rye, three-quarters of an ounce each of fresh lemon juice and simple syrup, shaken hard — because every other drink in the Room is that template with one part changed. Add egg white and it becomes a Boston Sour. Float red wine on it and it becomes a New York Sour. Swap the sugar for honey and you have a Gold Rush; for maple, a Maple Whiskey Sour. Muddle the lemon with mint and it is a Whiskey Smash.

The sour is the most forgiving template in the bar and the most widely copied: the Daiquiri, the Margarita and the Pisco Sour are the same shape on rum, tequila and grape brandy. That makes the Room transferable — learn the shake and the ratio once and all of these follow. The cards above go to each recipe; what follows is how to choose between them.

How to Choose Your Whiskey Sour

With 15 builds in the Room, three questions get you to the right one fast: do you want foam, what should the sweetener be, and whether you want the whiskey or the modifier to lead.

The Categories

Classic and method

The rye Whiskey Sour is the definitive recipe and the one this corner is built around: 2 oz rye, ¾ oz lemon, ¾ oz 1:1 syrup, the ratio PUNCH's judging panel settled on and the one Jerry Thomas's 1887 guide — which specifies "Bourbon or rye whiskey" — points toward. How to make a Whiskey Sour is the step-by-step method for a first attempt, with the mistakes that undo most home versions.

Egg white and texture

Add ½ oz of egg white and the drink is commonly called a Boston Sour: the same sweet-sour balance under a meringue-like foam, usually served up with a lemon twist and a few dashes of Angostura dragged across the top. Jeffrey Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour uses the same egg-white technique with amaretto as the base and sweetener and a cask-proof whiskey for backbone. The egg question itself — how much, the dry shake, pasteurized eggs, aquafaba — is in the egg white guide.

Fruit and wine

The New York Sour floats a dry red wine over the finished drink, an idea Chicago bartenders were already serving in the 1880s. The Ward Eight, Boston's rye sour, adds orange juice and grenadine. The Blinker swaps lemon for grapefruit and sugar for raspberry syrup or grenadine. Dale DeGroff's Whiskey Smash muddles lemon wedges with mint and serves over crushed ice — lemon oil as well as juice, which is what makes it taste like a different drink.

Sweetener swaps

Change the sugar and the whole drink moves. The Gold Rush (Milk & Honey, around 2000–01) uses a 3:1 honey syrup and is served on a large rock; the Maple Whiskey Sour pairs maple with rye because, as Brad Farran put it, rye is aged in oak, so both are woodsy; the Brown Derby is honey and grapefruit on bourbon, a 1930s Hollywood drink. The syrups themselves — 1:1, rich 2:1, honey, maple — are in the syrup guide.

Bitter and amaro

Two drinks that stretch the template furthest. Giuseppe González's Trinidad Sour makes an ounce and a half of Angostura bitters the base, with orgeat as the sweetener and just half an ounce of rye. The Scofflaw, from Paris in January 1924, brings dry vermouth into the sour alongside grenadine and a dash of orange bitters. The Trinidad Sour is a rye drink by specification; the Scofflaw was first reported with rye, though Harry's ABC (1930) prints it with Canadian Club.

By spirit

The bourbon Whiskey Sour is the rounder build and the default in most published recipes; Whiskey Sour by Spirit covers Scotch (and its famous cousin the Penicillin), Irish, Japanese and Canadian whiskies and explains what each does to the balance. The case for rye is made in why rye works in a Whiskey Sour and the head-to-head is bourbon vs rye Whiskey Sour.

What Every Recipe Here Shares

• Fresh lemon juice. Every reputable spec calls for it; sour mix is why the drink spent decades in disgrace — fresh lemon juice guide.
• A hard shake on plenty of ice. Egg-white versions add a shake without ice — how to shake a Whiskey Sour.
• A whiskey with enough proof. The Bottle Library ranks the ryes; the budget guide keeps it under $30.
• A garnish that matches the serve. Lemon wheel and cherry on the rocks, twist and bitters on the foam up — Whiskey Sour garnish.
• The right glass. A rocks glass over ice or a chilled coupe — best Whiskey Sour glass.

The Cousins Outside the Room

Three drinks share the sour's shape without being Whiskey Sours. The Paper Plane — equal parts bourbon, Amaro Nonino, Aperol and lemon — is a Milk & Honey descendant where bitter liqueurs do the sweetening. The Rye Fizz is a sour lengthened with soda, the fizz being, in the Oxford Companion's phrase, a close cousin of the daisy. And the Penicillin is the Gold Rush moved to Scotch with ginger in the honey syrup; it lives on the by-spirit page. The whole family tree, with what each change does to the drink, is in Whiskey Sour Variations.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Whiskey Sour recipes are in the Recipe Room?

15 builds across six categories — the classic and its method, egg-white builds, fruit and wine riffs, sweetener swaps, bitter and amaro builds and the spirit variations. Use the filters to jump to the style you want.

What is the best Whiskey Sour recipe to start with?

The classic: 2 oz rye, ¾ oz fresh lemon juice, ¾ oz simple syrup, shaken hard with ice and strained over fresh ice or into a chilled coupe. It teaches the shake and the balance every other recipe depends on.

What is the easiest Whiskey Sour variation for beginners?

The Gold Rush — the same ratio with honey syrup in place of sugar, served on a big rock, no egg white. The New York Sour is next: make the classic, then float a quarter-ounce of red wine over the back of a spoon.

Do I need egg white?

No. The IBA lists it as optional and Jerry Thomas's 1887 recipe has none. Egg white adds foam and a softer texture; with it the drink is commonly called a Boston Sour.

What actually changes between the variations?

One element each time: the texture (egg white), the citrus (orange, grapefruit, muddled lemon), the sweetener (honey, maple, grenadine, orgeat), the modifier (red wine, dry vermouth, bitters) or the spirit. The shake and the glass stay the same.

Rye or bourbon for a Whiskey Sour?

Both are original — Jerry Thomas's 1887 guide says "Bourbon or rye." PUNCH's 2017 judges found rye the stronger choice against egg white, and the winning entry used a 100-proof rye; the IBA and Difford's default to bourbon. If you like a drier, spicier sour, reach for rye.