Comments on: Happy Hour: The Sazerac

By: Happy Hour: Tales Recap Pt. 4 (Highlights and Lowlights) – Umamimart

Happy Hour: Tales Recap Pt. 4 (Highlights and Lowlights) – Umamimart — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:38:11 +0000

[...] Orleans also has a rich cocktail history, and no other cocktail represents that history than the Sazerac. The Sazerac is so NOLA that it’s been deemed the city’s official cocktail. So coming [...]

By: Historic Sazerac Bar (NOLA) – umamimart

Historic Sazerac Bar (NOLA) – umamimart — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:48:40 +0000

[...] cocktail is popularly lauded as THE original cocktail (although Paystyle disputed this in his Happy Hour post), comprised of rye, bitters, absinthe, and a sugar [...]

By: Paystyle

Paystyle — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:17:39 +0000

Mr. McCarthy, thanks so much for those useful bits and pieces, and thanks for reading! I really have to frequent Chanticleer Society much more often, and my profile desperately needs updating.

By: Ian McCarthy

Ian McCarthy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:44:26 +0000

Filling in a few blanks, history wise, in so far as I know:

Antoine began dispensing in 1838, at 123 Royal st.

It was a hired gun by the name Of Leon Lamothe who added the absinthe rinse in about 1855.

My recipe: 2 0z Rye
4 dashes Peychaud’s
1 dash angostura
1/2 tbsp simple syrup
absinthe and lemon peel

By: kayoko

kayoko — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:30:46 +0000

You’re the best explainer of things.

By: Paystyle

Paystyle — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:41:48 +0000

Well it all depends on how you look at it. To me the issue really has to do with branding. On one hand the Sazerac, as I explained, was based on a template for boozing that was fairly standard at the time: soften the often-harsh spirit by mixing it with some water, sugar, and maybe bitters if you got it in your medicine cabinet, and even a lemon peel if you wanted to get fancy–except in the case of the Sazerac some absinthe was added.

That drink I just recalled (sans absinthe) has a name, and it’s called the Old Fashioned. However people just called it a ‘cocktail,’ with no actual formal nomenclature seemingly attached. What appears to have happened is at some eventual point in history, people started to call it an Old Fashioned, because it was just that, an old fashioned cocktail, and so that name stuck.

However the formal naming of the Old Fashioned appears to have happened after the creation and naming of the Sazerac, even though as I mentioned the drink itself (w/o formal name) likely predates the Sazerac. Therefore many reference the Sazerac as the first cocktail, when the more accurate statement would be that it’s the first one to be distinctly and formally named and marketed.

By: kayoko

kayoko — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:20:35 +0000

Great post! I was just told today by a Macallan rep that the Sazerac was the “first cocktail of all time”. I was also told this by the Zuni Cafe bartender too, when I was last there.

So if not the Sazerac, what was it? Just curious. Cause this drink seems to get all the credit.

Looking forward to making this with some Rye! Maybe I’ll upgrade from Jim Beam– although I can’t quite afford the 18yr Sazarac. You PIMP!

Going to NOLA next week, en route to snowy NYC. Can’t wait to have the Sazerac!