so you've almost definitely heard of the Sazerac cocktail but New Orleans was also the birthplace
of another absinthe tinged delight sometimes called a de la Louisiane or a cocktail a la
Louisiane, it takes its name from the restaurant la Louisiane where it was the house cocktail
it was included in the same cocktail book as the Sazerac which was Stanley Clisby Arthur's famous
'New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'em' which came out in 1937 but it's never enjoyed quite the same
reach as its more famous peer. Benedictine is one of France's many herbal liqueurs made by monks
it's a little bit more honey sweet than things like Chartreuse and it has a really lovely warm
liquorice flavour that works well with the absinthe and the spicy rye in this drink the
original recipe was equal parts of kind of all of the main ingredients but most agree nowadays that
that makes it quite sweet so the bBenedictine's usually pared back a little bit then you have
Peychauds which is the most famous Creole style bitters and it has a real warm cherry sweetness to
it if you don't have that then you can absolutely just use Angostura but i'd only do sort of one or
two dashes and rather than the full three because it's a bit of a stronger flavour and it can
overpower everything else quite easily you just want to use a good quality spicy mixing rye here
i've gone for Bulleit rye because it's got a high rye content so it's nice and peppery and it stands
up well as sort of the backbone of this drink but feel free to substitute whatever your go-to
cocktail rye is and because the Benedictine is already bringing lots of herbal notes and
sweetness um i like to keep this vermouth pretty kind of classic and light i've got Cinzano Rosso
here or Martini would absolutely work as well the absinthe is just a supporting act it doesn't have
to be anything too fancy um so i'm sticking with Pernod which is easy to come by, not too expensive
and just a good quality product you just want you know enough flavour that it's going to come
through in quite a small amount I pop mine in a little dropper bottle here but if you don't have
one then just do kind of a little bit less than a bar spoon to make this drink you'll need a mixing
glass, a jigger, a bar spoon, a julep strainer and a coupe glass for your ingredients you need
50 mls or one and two-thirds of an ounce rye, 25 mls or four fifths of an ounce sweet vermouth,
10 mls or a third of an ounce of Benedictine liqueur, three dashes of Peychauds bitters, three
dashes of absinthe and some cocktail cherries to garnish all right so we're just gonna go in with
50 mls of rye. 25 mls of sweet vermouth so obviously at this point you basically just have a
manhattan and then you're just gonna start adding your accent flavoirs here ten mls of benedictine
three dashes of Peychauds bitters and three to four good dashes of absinthe
give it a stir
then we're just going to strain it into a chilled coupe glass
sink in a little cherry all right give this a little try
this is definitely my style of drink that kind of stirred down and boozy
it's really lovely it's definitely a bit on the sweeter side like even compared
to manhattan just with that extra liqueur in there and the absinthe comes through in
just the right amount for me so just like a really kind of delicate little accent
there's obviously heaps going on in there you've got um yeah as i said that kind of quite honey
sweetness coming from the Benedictine um and heaps of spice from your Peychauds and all the
different botanicals and the vermouth um and the liqueur uh so yeah super super interesting drink
don't shoot me but i think i might prefer it to the Sazerac! Complex and interesting this
is certainly the kind of drink to ruminate on and definitely gives its more famous cousin a
solid run for its money and actually wins in my eyes the La Louisiane cocktail so now you know