Edwin Rios at Death & Co Los Angeles said he hated old-fashioneds one too many times, so when we were building a new menu, he was assigned the old-fashioned slot — a playful push to change that opinion. He spent a week drinking them across LA—nobody, he noticed, was using rye—and a cantaloupe-and-cured-meat dish at Hatchet Hall supplied the flavors for his take: rye, mezcal, melon, and ginger shochu stretching the texture. Fruit-driven without announcing it, from skeptic to a believer.