1930s Zazarac Cocktail... Sazerac, But Better - Cocktails After Dark

1930s Zazarac Cocktail... Sazerac, But Better - Glen And Friends Cooking Cocktails After Dark
The Sazerac Cocktail; so much spilled ink about the origin story, so much spilled ink about the only way to make one, so much spilled ink about how you can only make it in New Orleans. No one really mentions that most of the original crucial ingredients are no longer made and we're dealing with similar recreations of the originals. Then there's the elephant in the room - who really likes the Sazerac anyway? This is a Savoy Cocktail book recipe; a sazerac cocktail variation perhaps?

Zazarac Cocktail
1/6 bacardi Rum
1/6 Anisette
1/6 Gomme Syrup
1/3 Canadian Club Whisky
1 Dash Angostura Bitters
1 Dash Orange Bitters
3 Dashes Absinthe
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Squeeze lemon peel on top.

David Embury famously wrote about the Sazerac Cocktail in this scathingly bitter review:

"Let us consider the Sazerac, widely advertised as the drink that
made New Orleans famous. This is one of the numerous drinks whose
precise formula is supposed to be a deep dark secret. Somehow, the
gullibility of human nature is such that the two things that seem to
afford the greatest advertising value to a drink are (1) a secret formula
shrouded in great mystery, and (2) the slogan "Only two to a customer."
There have been many recipes published purporting to be the true
and original Sazerac. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of any of them,
especially since the Sazerac Company of New Orleans still claims that
its drink (which, incidentally. is sold bottled as a ready-mixed cocktail )
is made from a formula that has been in use for more than a hundred
years and never made public . Nevertheless, anyone at all familiar with
liquors who has ever tasted this drink knows that essentially it is merely
an Old-Fashioned made with Peychaud bitters instead of Angostura
and flavored with a dash of absinthe. Traditionally, the Sazerac, like
the Old-Fashioned, is madc by first saturating a lump of sugar with
bitters and then muddling it. In the interest of simplicity and better
drinks, however, we have abandoned loaf sugar in favor of sugar syrup.

The Sazerac is a sharp, pungent, thoroughly dry cocktail. To most
people, however, the combination of absinthe and whisky is not particularly pleasing. Whisky lovers do not like the sharp, biting taste that the
absinthe imparts. Absinthe lovers prefer their absinthe straight, dripped,
frappeed, or mixed with gin rather than whisky. Even among my
various New Orleans friends I have yet to find a Sazerac addict. Nevertheless, various hotels, clubs, and other bars have created simplified
Sazerac-type cocktails-drinks with pretty much the same flavor as the
Sazerac but which can be made with much less fuss and loss of time."




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