The Sazerac - An Original American Cocktail

With origins that date back to pre-Civil War New Orleans

, the Sazerac is widely touted as being the original American cocktail. The drink itself has evolved since its creation and is now considered a combination of Rye whiskey, Peychaud's bitters, and a sugar cube. Garnished with a lemon peel, the Sazerac is usually served straight up in an old fashioned glass that's been rinsed with absinthe.

Sazerac brand Rye whiskey or Buffalo Trace Bourbon is most often used as the main ingredient. Herbsaint, a pastis, has historically been used as an alternative for absinthe in the drink because absinthe was made illegal for a time.

The exact history of the drink is somewhat debated, but the legend goes that in around 1838 a New Orleans apothecary named Antoine Amedie Peychaud served his friends drinks; brandies to which he had added a bit of his family's secret recipe for Peychaud's bitters. An immediate hit, the drink was continually made by Peychaud, his friends, and others as they learned about it.

About 20 years later, a man named John B. Schiller who had previously worked as the local representative for Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils, a brandy company out of France, opened a bar he called the Sazerac Coffee House. The bar featured brandy cocktails that were a twist on the old Peychaud toddy. In around 1873, the cognac began being traded out for American Rye whiskey, a taste that appealed more to American tastes, and absinthe was used to rinse the glass it was being served in to give the cocktail a truly New Orleans flair!

Folk tale or not, one thing is for certain, the Sazerac cocktail has been permanently engrained as part of New Orleans' past, present, and future. The drink's roots are firmly planted in New Orleans, no matter when you believe it was first poured. After some debate as to whether it should represent the entire state or only the city of New Orleans, on June 23, 2008, the Sazerac Cocktail was named the official cocktail of New Orleans.

The drink has been, and continues to be, featured in TV shows, movies, and literature about New Orleans. In an episode, a character on HBO's original series "Treme" mixed a Sazerac and then threw it in the face of the actual food critic that notoriously criticized New Orleans' cuisine post-Hurricane Katrina. Characters in popular films such as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" as well as the Katherine Hepburn film, "State of the Union", order Sazerac cocktails in different scenes.

by: Igor Platonov

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