| A Sazerac at the Sazerac Bar, The Roosevelt New Orleans Hotel | |
| Type | Cocktail |
|---|---|
| Served | straight up |
| Standard garnish |
Lemon peel |
| Standard drinkware | Old Fashioned glass |
| Commonly used ingredients |
|
| Preparation | One old fashioned or rocks glass is packed with ice and water to chill the glass. In a second old fashioned glass, muddle the sugar cube or simple syrup with the bitters. Add the rye to this mixture. Stir to combine. Empty the ice from the first glass. Pour the absinthe or Herbsaint into the glass and swirl to coat the sides of the glass. Any excess absinthe or Herbsaint is discarded. Pour the rye/sugar/bitters mixture into the coated glass. Twist a lemon peel over the glass and rub the rim of the glass with the peel. The peel can be discarded or placed into the cocktail. |
| Notes | Originally, the Sazerac was made and served in an egg cup called a "coquetier"—a word speculated by some linguists to be the origin of the word "cocktail", though this myth has now been debunked. See below. |
The Sazerac is a local New Orleans variation of an old-fashioned cognac or whiskey cocktail, named for the Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of cognac that was its original prime ingredient. The drink is some combination of cognac, rye whiskey, absinthe or Herbsaint, and Peychaud's Bitters and distinguished by its preparation method.[1] It is sometimes referred to as the oldest known American cocktail,[2] with origins in pre–Civil War New Orleans, Louisiana, though there are much earlier mentions of the cocktail in print.[3]
Contents |
The defining feature of the Sazerac is the preparation of an old-fashioned glass with absinthe or an anise-flavored spirit. Pernod, Herbsaint, Absente and green Chartreuse were common substitutes for absinthe when it was not available.
According to the Sazerac Company of New Orleans, the modern day Sazerac Cocktail recipe calls for 1 cube of sugar, 1½ ounces of Sazerac Rye Whiskey, ¼ ounce of Herbsaint, 3 dashes of Peychaud's Bitters and a lemon peel. One Old Fashioned glass is packed with ice. In a second Old Fashioned glass, a sugar cube and 3 dashes of Peychaud's Bitters are muddled. The rye whiskey is then added to the sugar/bitters mixture. The ice is emptied from the first Old Fashioned glass and the Herbsaint is poured into the glass and swirled to coat the sides of the glass. Any excess Herbsaint is discarded. The rye/sugar/bitters mixture is then poured into the Herbsaint coated glass and the glass is garnished with a lemon peel.
Around 1850, Sewell T. Taylor sold his bar, The Merchants Exchange Coffee House, and went into the imported liquor business. He began to import a brand of cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils. At the same time, Aaron Bird took over the Merchants Exchange and changed its name to the Sazerac House and began serving the "Sazerac Cocktail," made with Taylor's Sazerac cognac and, legend has it, the bitters being made down the street by a local druggist, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. The Sazerac House changed hands several times and around 1870 Thomas Handy took over as proprietor. Around this time the primary ingredient changed from cognac to rye whiskey due to the phylloxera epidemic in Europe that devastated France's wine grape crops. At some point before his death in 1889, Handy recorded the recipe for cocktail and the drink made its first printed appearance in William T. "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's 1908 edition of his "The World's Drinks and How to Mix Them,"[4] though this recipe calls for Selner Bitters, not Peychaud's.[5] During the time that absinthe was banned, it was replaced by various anise-flavored spirits, including the locally-produced Herbsaint.
The drink is a simple variation on a plain whiskey or cognac "Cock-Tail" (alcohol, sugar, water and bitters) and could have been ordered in any latter 19th Century bar in the U.S. as a Whiskey Cocktail with a dash of absinthe. It was this type of variation to the cocktail that caused patrons not interested in the new complexities of cocktails to request their drinks done the Old Fashioned way. By the early 20th Century, vermouth was fairly prevalent, and simple cocktails like the Sazerac had become a somewhat rare curiosity, which aided its popularity.[6]
The creation of the Sazerac has also been credited to Antoine Amadie Peychaud, the Creole apothecary who moved to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter in the early part of the 19th Century. He dispensed a proprietary mix of aromatic bitters from an old family recipe. According to legend he served his drink in the large end of an egg cup that was called a coquetier in French, and that the Americanized pronunciation of this as "cocktail" gave this type of drink its name. However, the word cocktail predates this by decades, first appearing in print in 1803, and first defined in print in 1806 as "a mixture of spirits of any kind, water, sugar and bitters, vulgarly called a bittered sling.".[7]
In March 2008, Louisiana state senator Edwin R. Murray (D-New Orleans) filed Senate Bill 6 designating the Sazerac as Louisiana's official state cocktail. The bill was defeated on April 8, 2008. The state Senate then approved a revised bill designating it as the official cocktail for New Orleans only,[8] rather than the entire state, but the state House then reverted the bill back to its original form. The Senate then rejected the bill again, sending it to conference committee. The committee said it should be the official New Orleans cocktail and the Senate agreed. However, the House then failed to concur. Finally, on June 23, 2008 the House agreed to proclaim the Sazerac as New Orleans' official cocktail.[9]
Sazerac is also a brand of Rye Whiskey owned by the Sazerac Company and produced at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. There are two current expressions of the brand; an 18 year whiskey and a younger, 6 year-old. Both are bottled at 90 proof.
A Sazerac cocktail features prominently in an episode of the TV series Treme when chef Janette Desautel (played by Kim Dickens) tosses one in the face of restaurant critic and food writer Alan Richman (appearing as himself). Richman had angered many New Orleanians in 2006 with an article in the magazine GQ in which he criticized New Orleans' food culture post-Katrina. Despite reservations, he agreed to participate in the scene and called Sazerac "a good choice of weaponry, because it symbolizes the city".[10]
In "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" when he meets with his father for drinks, his father orders a Sazerac.
In the 1948 movie State of the Union, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, a southern lady named Lulubelle Alexander orders several Sazerac cocktails.
W. E. B. Griffin's Presidential Agent series of novels also include references to this drink and the author's version of the recipe.
Where to find the best Sazerac cocktail in Washington DC is key to the plot of the USA Network drama Covert Affairs Season 2, Episode #13 "A Girl Like You".
In "Live and Let Die" when Bond returns to the Fillet of Soul with the FBI agent, the agent orders two Sazerac cocktails after Bond orders a Bourbon.