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1 Peychaud’s Spritz What you will need: 1 ounce Peychaud’s Aperitivo 4 ounces Prosecco ½ ounce Q Mixers Soda Lime Twist how to prep: In a large wine glass, add ice, then slowly pour in Prosecco. Add Peychaud’s Aperitivo and club soda, then give the drink a gentle stir. Garnish with a lime twist. 2 Wheatley Gibson What you will need: 2 ounces Wheatley Vodka 1 ounce Dry Vermouth A few drops of Onion Brine 1 Pearl Onion how to prep: In a mixing glass, add the Vodka, dry vermouth and onion brine, then add ice and stir. Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with a cold pearl onion. 3 Sazerac Cocktail What you will need: 1½ ounces Sazerac Rye Whiskey 1 Sugar Cube 3 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters ¼ ounce Legendre Herbsaint Lemon Peel how to prep: Pack an Old-Fashioned glass with ice. In a second Old-Fashioned glass, place a sugar cube and add three dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters to it. Crush the sugar cube. Add Sazerac Rye Whiskey to the glass with the Peychaud’s Bitters and sugar. Add ice and stir. Empty the ice from the first glass and coat the glass with Herbsaint. Discard the remaining Herbsaint. Strain the whiskey/bitters/sugar mixture from the glass into the Herbsaint-coated glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

4 Corpse Reviver #2 What you will need: ¾ ounce Gin ¾ ounce Orange Liqueur ¾ ounce Moscato d’Asti ¾ ounce Lemon Juice ¼ ounce Legendre Herbsaint how to prep: In a mixing tin, add the gin, lemon juice, Moscato d’Asti and orange liqueur. Add ice and shake. Strain into an Herbsaint-rinsed coupe or cocktail glass. No garnish. 5 El Presidente What you will need: 1½ ounces Cane Run Rum ½ ounce Orange Liqueur ¾ ounce Dry Vermouth Dash Grenadine Orange Twist Cane Run rum, orange liqueur, dry vermouth and grenadine, then add ice and stir. Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with an orange twist. 6 Bualo Trace Old-Fashioned What you will need: how to prep: In a mixing glass, add the

that it tasted like nothing I’d ever had before. The spiciness of the rye, the sweetness of the syrup, the herbaceousness of the Herbsaint, and whatever it was that Peychaud’s brought to the equation (besides that ruby hue) all melded together seamlessly into one mysteriously complete whole. Halfway through the glass, I decided I had found my new favorite cocktail. I drank a lot of Sazeracs that week. They differed from place to place, but resembled each other more than they didn’t. The

town collectively knew how to make a good Sazerac. I heard later that week that the general consensus among bartenders and the cocktail cognoscenti was that the New Orleans Sazeracs had skewed sweet of late. I had no way of knowing, but they all tasted pretty good to me. Certainly, better than most of the cocktails I was getting in New York. New York. That was a problem. I would have to return eventually and had no idea where I might get a good Sazerac. The hunt began as soon as I touched down back in Brooklyn. I found my first winner at The Good Fork, a cozy restaurant deep in the desolate Red Hook neighborhood. That figured, I soon discovered. The bartender was St. John Frizell, who had lived for a time in New Orleans. Within a few months, I had compiled a list of roughly a dozen places where the cocktail could safely be ordered.

That was a big relief. Nonetheless, no city will ever replace New Orleans for Sazerac consistency and ubiquity. It’s like asking for a glass of ice water. They are served everywhere, and that is a very comforting feeling. That point was driven home once and for all when I wandered into a Rouses Market in the Warehouse District one day. I gravitated, as I tend to do, toward the liquor section. As I turned down one aisle, I encountered a six-foot,

2 ounces Buffalo Trace ¼ ounce Simple Syrup 2 dashes Orange Bitters 1 dash Aromatic Bitters Orange Twist Maraschino Cherry

how to prep: In an Old-Fashioned or rocks glass, add the Buffalo Trace, syrup and bitters. Then add ice and stir until chilled and diluted. Garnish with an orange twist and a cherry.

vertical piece of signage that encouraged shoppers to purchase the ingredients needed for a Sazerac. To make it easier on the curious, the sign spelled out, in detail, exactly how to make the drink. We may have some decent Sazeracs in New York now. But we’ll never have a grocery store with a sign like that.

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NOVEMBER•DECEMBER 2019