The 7 essential cocktails every drinker should know how to make
- Thread starter JEK
- Start date
24loar
SBH Insider
Glad to see 'Old Fashioned' in the select seven. A local club in Louisville-The Pendennis- claims it as the invention of a nineteenth century bartender; but then, so do several other institutions.
Sorry to see 'Sazerac' omitted from the list. Claimed to be the first cocktail, it can be found in various forms throughout the Crescent City. Rye whiskey is the favored base, with an essence of real Absinthe (not Pernod). And NO ice cubes. Strangely, all of the ingredients, save the absinthe, are now made in Frankfort KY.
Sorry to see 'Sazerac' omitted from the list. Claimed to be the first cocktail, it can be found in various forms throughout the Crescent City. Rye whiskey is the favored base, with an essence of real Absinthe (not Pernod). And NO ice cubes. Strangely, all of the ingredients, save the absinthe, are now made in Frankfort KY.
JEK
Senior Insider
JEK
Senior Insider
Seems the history goes back to cognac . . .
Around 1850, Sewell T. Taylor sold his New Orleans bar, the Merchants Exchange Coffee House, to become an importer of spirits, and 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. On October 2, 2019, the Sazerac House opened to the public as a museum and immersive experience that shares the history of the New Orleans cocktail culture, including the Sazerac.
Legend has it that Bird began serving the "Sazerac Cocktail", made with Sazerac cognac imported by Taylor, and allegedly with bitters being made by the local apothecary, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. The Sazerac Coffee House subsequently changed hands several times, until 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.
24loar
SBH Insider
Thanks for the additional Sazerac details. It is a very tasty cocktail (my favorite!), but for years I was never able to find a bar in Bourbon soaked Louisville that could match the New Orleans products. Now that the Sazerac corporation has established itself here in KY, there are finally a few places that can make the real thing.
