Deconstructed Old FashionedA classic Old Fashioned reimagined — the finished cocktail sits surrounded by its essential components: keg and wheat grass for whiskey, sugar cubes, cherries, and a hint of orange bitters. A playful study in mixology photography and creative beverage styling.📸 Every element tells part of the story behind the perfect cocktail.

Many of my images are found rather than planned—moments stumbled upon as I move through daily life. This photograph marks a shift from that approach. It’s the beginning of a more intentional series of still lifes centered around my interpretation of deconstructed cocktails.

This work isn’t about documenting a recipe or faithfully recreating a drink. Instead, it’s about translating what a cocktail means to me visually. The goal is interpretation rather than instruction—using objects, textures, and light to suggest flavor, ritual, and mood.

Because I hadn’t spent much time working in still life before, this series also became a way to stretch creatively and take on something new. I always envisioned it as a set of images, and starting with the Old Fashioned felt natural. It’s my go-to cocktail—simple on the surface, but with an undeniable craft behind it.

The Old Fashioned doesn’t rely on many ingredients, which made the deconstruction feel focused. For me, the essentials were clear: bourbon, sugar (sugar cubes—no simple syrup for this guy), bitters, and a cherry. From there, the challenge became figuring out how to represent those elements photographically without turning the image into a literal record of a mixed drink.

I wanted to include both the idea of the cocktail and the finished result. To do that, I brought in tall grasses and a small wooden keg to suggest the bourbon, alongside sugar cubes, cherries, and a small bottle of bitters. A solid, classic tumbler was essential—it anchors the image and grounds the composition in the familiar ritual of the drink itself.

The setting mattered just as much as the ingredients. I placed everything on aged wood and introduced dark, textured cloth napkins to break up the browns and wood tones, adding subtle contrast without pulling attention away from the subject. The lighting and composition were kept restrained, allowing texture and color to do the heavy lifting.

I chose to shoot this with a very narrow depth of field, keeping the drink and its primary elements in sharp focus while letting the supporting details fall softly out of focus around them. That separation reinforces the idea of deconstruction—the essentials remain clear, while everything else recedes.

This image is less about what’s in the glass and more about how it feels. It’s a starting point for a series that explores familiar cocktails through a photographic lens, breaking them down and rebuilding them visually in a way that reflects how I see them.

This image is available as a fine art print—click on the photograph to view print options.