This article is about the cocktail; for the company, see Sazerac Company.
The Sazerac is a local New Orleans variation of a Cognac or whiskey cocktail, named for
the Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of Cognac brandy that served as its original main ingredient.
The drink is most traditionally a combination of cognac or rye, absinthe, Peychaud's Bitters,
and sugar, although bourbon whiskey and/or Herbsaint are sometimes substituted.
Some claim it is the oldest known American cocktail, with origins in pre–Civil War
New Orleans, although drink historian David Wondrich is among those who dispute this,
and American instances of published usage of the word cocktail to describe a mixture
of spirits, bitters, and sugar can be traced to the dawn of the 19th century.
Characteristics The defining feature of the Sazerac is its
method of preparation, which commonly involves two chilled old-fashioned glasses.
The first glass is swirled with a wash of absinthe for its flavor and strong scent.
The second glass is used to combine the remaining ingredients, which are stirred with ice, then
strained into the first glass.
Various anisettes such as pastis, Pernod, or Herbsaint are common substitutes when absinthe
is unavailable.
In New Orleans, Herbsaint is most commonly used due to the absence of absinthe in the
U.S. market from 1912 until 2007.
History Around 1850, Sewell T. Taylor sold his New
Orleans bar, The Merchants Exchange Coffee House, to become an importer of spirits, where
he began to import a brand of cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils.
Meanwhile, Aaron Bird assumed proprietorship of the Merchants Exchange, and changed its
name to Sazerac Coffee House.
Legend has it that Bird began serving the "Sazerac Cocktail", made with Sazerac Cognac
imported by Taylor, and allegedly with bitters being made by local apothecary, Antoine Amedie
Peychaud.
The Sazerac Coffee House subsequently changed hands several times, when around 1870, Thomas
Handy became its proprietor.
It is around this time that the primary ingredient changed from cognac to rye whiskey due to
the phylloxera epidemic in Europe that devastated the vineyards of France.
At some point before his death in 1889, Handy recorded the recipe for the cocktail, which
made its first printed appearance in William T. "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's 1908 The World's
Drinks and How to Mix Them, although this recipe calls for Selner Bitters, not Peychaud's.
After absinthe was banned in the US in 1912, it was replaced by various anise-flavored
liqueurs, most notably the locally produced Herbsaint, which first appeared in 1934.
The Sazerac is a simple variation on a plain whiskey or Cognac cocktail, and could have
been ordered in any latter 19th Century bar in the US as a whiskey cocktail with a dash
of absinthe.
It was this type of variation to the cocktail that caused patrons uninterested in the new
complexities of cocktails to request their drinks be made the Old Fashioned way.
By the early 20th Century, simple cocktails like the Sazerac had become a somewhat rare
curiosity, which would eventually rekindle their popularity.
The creation of the Sazerac has also been credited to Antoine Amédée Peychaud, the
Creole apothecary who emigrated to New Orleans from the West Indies, and set up shop in the
French Quarter in the early 19th Century.
He was known to dispense a proprietary mix of aromatic bitters from an old family recipe.
According to popular myth, he served his drink in the large end of an egg cup that was called
a coquetier in French, and that the Americanized mispronunciation resulted in the word "cocktail".
This belief was debunked when it was discovered that the term "cocktail" as a type of drink
first appeared in print at least as far back as 1803, and was defined in print in 1806
as "a mixture of spirits of any kind, water, sugar and bitters, vulgarly called a bittered
sling.".
Official cocktail of New Orleans In March 2008, Louisiana state senator Edwin
R. Murray filed Senate Bill 6 designating the Sazerac as Louisiana's official state
cocktail.
The bill was defeated on April 8, 2008.
After further debate, on June 23, 2008, the Louisiana Legislature agreed to proclaim the
Sazerac as New Orleans' official cocktail.
In popular culture A Sazerac cocktail features prominently in
an episode of the TV series Treme when chef Janette Desautel tosses one in the face of
restaurant critic and food writer Alan Richman.
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".
In the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Benjamin's father orders two Whiskey Sazeracs
when first meeting his son at a brothel in New Orleans.
In the film State of the Union, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as political campaigners,
one of the Southern guests of Hepburn's character introduces her to Sazeracs and she becomes
intoxicated on them.
In the film Live and Let Die, Felix Leiter orders two Sazeracs at the fictional Filet
of Soul restaurant in New Orleans.
In The Andy Griffith Show season 3 Andy's girlfriend Peggy orders a Sazerac while out
to dinner in a fancy restaurant.
Brand Sazerac is also a brand of rye whiskey owned
by the Sazerac Company.
See also List of cocktails
References