As I found myself of late in the French Quarter, a veritable garden of earthly delights, my thoughts drifted to cocktails. As a younger man, I had assumed the cocktail had been a fixture of the libation scene since, well since forever. Not so. They are a fairly recent addition to spirits, beer and wine having only arrived on the scene in the early 19th century. There are a great many claims as to the origin of the word and who made the first one where. Most of the evidence seems to point toward it being something akin to an Old Fashioned.
But as I was seated in the courtyard at Amelie, in the Quarter, next to the fountain, I chose to believe that it was the Sazerac. The Sazerac gained popularity in the mid-1800s at the Sazerac Coffee House in New Orleans, which was named for the Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of cognac. The drink was originally made with cognac, but the phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century that destroyed European vineyards forced a switch to rye whiskey. Peychaud’s Bitters, which are a must for the Sazerac, were also created in New Orleans, in the 1830s, by a pharmacist named Antoine Amedie Peychaud (in fact, the cocktail was actually first mixed by Peychaud, before it even had a name).
Here’s looking at you Antoine!
-Hunter S.
