There’s nothing more authentically New Orleans than a Sazerac cocktail. The history is undeniably tied to the Big Easy (the name given to the city that is said to be synonymous with the spirit), though as with much cocktail lore no one can quite agree who invented it. For over a hundred years it was accepted that Antoine Peychaud invented it, but it turns out the story is probably a little more complicated than that.
“The original definition of the cocktail in the was that a cocktail is a spirit of any kind, sugar water and bitters,” says Sazerac House cocktail expert and experience team leader Matt Ray. “Then at some point in the probably 1830s or 1840s, bartenders started mucking around with the recipe, like they always do, and they started adding a dash of curacao, or a dash of maraschino, or a dash of absinthe, and created a new category of cocktail called the improved cocktail. The idea is that if you went to Sazerac House and you ordered a cocktail, they’re gonna ask you, what spirit do you want, and if you ordered brandy or cognac, those words were interchangeable, almost up until the 1920s when France codified what cognac was. If you ask for a cognac or brandy cocktail, you’re probably going to get the house cognac, which is Sazerac, or the house brandy, which is Sazerac de Forge, and
