Ira Koplowitz's earliest bartending gigs fell under the heading "means to an end." It wasn’t until a specific job – and a specific cocktail – that he had what he calls an epiphany – a drink-making epiphany. It was 2007 and he’d taken a job at a storied Wicker Park bar, The Violet Hour, where his tastebuds met a cocktail called Poor Liza. The experience was Proustian. “I thought, ‘I want to make drinks this transcendent forever. It was very much an ‘a-ha’ moment,” he says.

His next steps were to completely submerge himself in the cocktail craft. He read blogs and worked on syrup recipes and tinctures, “and that led to bitters,” he says of the infused spirit-making trade the Oklahoma native eventually settled into.

Koplowitz chose an old fashioned recipe to share, but not the brandy version, with which Wisconsinites are most familiar. For his version, he incorporates Heirloom Alchermes Liqueur – Heirloom being an offshoot of his bitters company, Bittercube. The Alchermes has a really distinctive flavor profile, with notes of cinnamon, cloves, vanilla bean and rosewater. There’s also a bar spoon of maple syrup, “an amazing ingredient for an old fashioned.” Koplowitz makes this creation – “near and dear to my heart” – quite a bit at home.

And most interesting of all – something you can’t buy in the store – is the whiskey he uses at home. It is a very unique elixir. In an Infinity bourbon bottle, Koplowitz saves the remnants of good bourbons he’s at the tail end of finishing. He’s been doing this for eight years, starting on a whiskey shopping expedition when he’d find “crazy old” bottles of bourbon. “Old things from the ’50s,” he says. “These crazy historic bottles.” When he got down to the last few ounces in the bottle, he didn’t want to finish them. They’re “all going into this old bottle,” which he never allows to get more than half full.

Aside from that bespoke ingredient, Koplowitz favors a “really simple drink with ingredients readily available.” You should use the best bourbon you can afford.