I recognized her immediately, but not quite like this. She appeared at the bar a little out of breath - discombobulated seemed to sum up the situation. She whisked her light brown hair behind one ear, took a quick look in the back bar mirror and soon regained her composure.

"An old-fashioned?" I posited, suggesting her newfound regular drink.

"Uh, sure," she said looking around for points of bearing.

"Like Johnny likes," she said. "You know with the special cherries and the lemon and all that."

"Sure, I remember," I said, recalling the extra steps involved in creating a cocktail that is already somewhat high maintenance. I also remembered her slick new boyfriend, Johnny.

The old-fashioned is appropriately named. It is one of the oldest cocktails known; in fact, some believe that the word cocktail was invented for this drink. That is, if you believe the folks at the Museum of the American Cocktail, who cite an 1806 magazine, the Balance and Columbian Repository, that reads: "Cock tail, then in a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling É"

Add a piece of citrus fruit you have the forerunner of the classic high-maintenance cocktail abhorred by bartenders everywhere, which is essentially what professor Jerry Thomas recorded in his pivotal bar guide, 1862's "Bon Vivant's Companion or How to Mix Drinks." By the early 1930s several bar guides began including a slice of orange as well (some

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even included a slice of pineapple), but by the time the 1935 edition of "Old Mr. Boston's Deluxe Official Bartenders Guide" (a cherry also appears in 1934's "Burke's Complete Cocktail and Drinking Recipes") the standard recipe including a maraschino cherry had been solidified. Eventually the quality of the cherries would deteriorate into the almond-flavored artificially dyed version we are so familiar with today. Some would say that the whiskey and the bitters, not to mention the fruit, have also declined, but those are arguments for another time. The old-fashioned had come into being and would stay essentially the same for the next 60-plus years. But back to the present.

Miss Disheveled sat at the bar expectantly for about 10 minutes sipping her old-fashioned.

When Johnny rushed in the door, she swiveled her seat away from him, coyly crossing her legs - control looks different to men and women.

"You can't just jump out of a moving car," he said a little out of breath.

Well that explained a few things.

"It wasn't moving; you were at a stop sign."

"That's not the point."

"I told you that I didn't want to go to that party and you just started driving there."

Johnny looked up at me realizing that the workings of his personal life were on display.

"Can I get my regular?" he asked, possibly as a way to get rid of a witness.

"I didn't think you'd mind," he whispered to Miss Disheveled.

"But, I told you how I felt," she said, clearly wanting others to hear.

On and on it went. A line had been drawn and then crossed. There was no going back now. Occasionally, in a relationship, especially a new one, a partner will decide to push the limits. If the line is firm the relationship will be more or less equitable. If the line wavers then the parameters of that relationship are forever weakened. I have seen it many times (alcohol has a way of doing that) with both sexes drawing the line.

Eventually, Miss Disheveled left in a cab. Johnny was left to ponder his own fate over his own old-fashioned.

I would see his lady friend sometime later with a more amenable and conscientious lover. Oddly enough she still drank the old-fashioned that Johnny had shown her. Proving that it's still possible to take something good away from a bad relationship.

RECIPE

Jeff's newfangled old-fashioned (or, forsome, an embittered sling)

2 ounces Makers Mark Bourbon

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1 brown sugar cube

1 lemon wedge

2 kirsch soaked Morello cherries (Griottines)

1 slice of orange (or tangerine or blood orange depending on the season)

Dash of soda water

In the bottom of a mixing glass combine sugar cube, bitters, soda water, orange and cherries. Squeeze lemon juice into mixture and then drop in lemon. Muddle until sugar cube dissolves, but do not smash into paste; the goal is just to release the flavors of the fruit. Add ice and bourbon and shake to combine. Pour into a tumbler. Sip slowly savoring the knowledge that women's assertiveness and cocktails have come along way since the 1800s.

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Add your comments to the end of this story at www.marin-sonoma-here.com. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.