We begin our trip to the land of cocktails with a selection of drinks that hail from New Orleans, starting with the Sazerac, the granddaddy of all cocktails. Some are revered, like Brandy Milk Punch, which is de rigueur for Mardi
Gras as well as a welcome eye-opener at brunch, and Ramos Gin Fizz, a frothy concoction of gin, an egg white, and orange-flower water.
Others are new classics we’ve created to celebrate friends, family, and our beloved city of New Orleans. The Adelaide Swizzle honors our broke-the-mold Aunt Adelaide. Sometimes it seems that we speak a different language down here
from the rest of America, which we celebrate with the Neutral Ground and the Brake Tag. And to show that
not even a hurricane will keep us from our cocktails, the Whoa, Nellie! was invented at our first Mardi Gras after Katrina.
We are Sazerac evangelists. Perhaps cocktails would never have caught on if the original one—the Sazerac—wasn’t such a perfect concoction. The Sazerac is easy to make but hard to master.
As with all cocktails, proportion and balance are important. We’ve had as many bad Sazeracs as good ones—even in our beloved New Orleans. It should be reddish orange in color. To our taste, Old Overholt rye whiskey or Sazerac are balanced and preferred, and in place of the original absinthe we like Herbsaint, which is not as intense as Pernod or Pastis. We use simple syrup in place of the traditional sugar cube, which most people don’t keep on hand anyway.
In the early 1800s the Sazerac was originally made with Cognac and Peychaud’s bitters, created by Antoine Peychaud. He named the drink for his favorite brand of Cognac from Limoges, France, the Sazerac-de-Forge et fils. In 1870, with Cognac harder to come by due to phylloxera in France, rye whiskey was substituted. Absinthe was banned in the United States in 1912, and hence Pernod or Herbsaint was substituted to coat the glass .
Makes 1 cocktail
1 tablespoon Herbsaint
1½ ounces rye whiskey, preferably Old Overholt
or Sazerac rye
½ teaspoon Simple Syrup (page 139)
4 to 5 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 lemon twist with the white pith removed, for garnish
